Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: First Catch
SERIES: San Diego Seals
AUTHOR: Cecelia Storm
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 271 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 26, 2023
BLURB:
The hardest play to master is a touchdown of the heart… Will these two opposites come together to score the ultimate goal?
Oliver
Teaching languages on the side is the only thing keeping me afloat right now, but when a golden-retriever of a man hired me for double my usual rate, I was suspicious. Question everything, that’s my motto. But there’s something about Spencer – besides his incredible athletic body – that puts my defenses at ease. Then my past catches up with me at gunpoint, and all hell breaks loose.
Spencer
The NFL is expecting great things from me this season, not to mention upholding my family’s pro-sports legacy. But when grumpy Oli showed up at my door to teach me French, it didn’t take long for me to fall for his beauty and mind. But… why does he feel like he’s always in danger? What is he running from? We could be so happy together if he’d just let me protect him from whatever, or whoever, seems to be catching up to him.
First Catch is a standalone Shady Past & Grumpy/Sunshine MM Sports Romance novel, and the first in the San Diego Seals series.
REVIEW:
Oliver is basically a hermit. He doesn’t go outside his apartment except for his job as a barista. He lives on his computer mostly it seems and in his little apartment on the wrong side of town in San Diego. The story starts off with him answering a sort of off the wall ad for a language tutor. He’s promptly drawn into the orbit of his elderly Chinese neighbor who only speaks Mandarin when she’s injured. He takes her to the hospital and then off to see his client – who is an American Football player for the local NFL team. Spencer Marsh comes from a football dynasty as it were. Oliver doesn’t follow football, so he has no clue, but his student is certainly smoking hot.
There is an instant attraction between Spencer and Oliver. Spencer is a big bundle of sunshine. Loves his job – even though it’s not THE love of his life. He has lots of money and he loves to volunteer at a community center, hence his desire to learn languages to convers with the people he’s helping. Oliver agrees to help – heck he needs to the money. They get off to a strange start. Then things get physical and Oliver pulls away. It’s clear he is scared of something and he isn’t forthcoming. To anyone.
I don’t want to spoil it because it’s not mentioned in the blurb, but Oliver’s past isn’t as far gone as he’d like. It also intersects with Spencer world. And it comes back to cause them both problems. There is a very circuitous route to a happy ending 😉
While I really enjoyed some parts of this story, it felt like it was just all over the place. Too many things were happening. The Coco Chanel adage comes to mind. Before you leave the house, take one thing off. That’s how I felt about this book. It needed to be less “busy” as it were. Certainly the grumpy/sunshiny vibes were there, but a lot of it had to do with life circumstances. Spencer was truly a big puppy dog of a personality. Oliver was so guarded, although it was clear early on that he wasn’t hard-hearted. I loved Mrs. Xu, although she seemed like a secret ninja character caught up in the wrong novel. The story is told from alternating POVs of Spencer and Oliver so at least we had some idea of what each guy was thinking. But the writing was a bit stilted in a lot of places. I feel like a really good edit would have helped this book a lot. It’s not bad – but I just wished for a tighter and more cohesive execution I guess.
There were quite a few niggles for me. A Barista in SD would in no way be able to afford a two bedroom apartment. Then there are sort of weirdly English/British phrases and words thrown in. Never have I ever heard of an American Football field being called “the pitch”. Gridiron, Football Field, the field, yes. Pitch, no. We also don’t call anything a car park. It’s always a parking lot or parking garage. Even Spencer’s nickname is a mostly English nickname of Spenny. There is some additional phraseology that kind of threw me out of the story. Just seemed a bit off for a clearly American setting/story. I am sort of interested to see what happens next with Leo, Spencer’s bestie.
RATING: 
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