Review: Striker

Title: Striker
Author: KyAnn Waters
Publisher: Carina Press
Publication Date: 9 January 2012
Reviewed Format: ebook
Length: 16,000 words

Blurb:
Sports writer Max Myers just discovered he lives next door to the hottest soccer player to hit the field. If he scores a coveted interview with the reclusive striker for the Denver Blaze, he could take himself from sports blogger to mainstream sports authority.

Riley Grayson has no interest in interviews or in outing his private life to the public. He wants to be known for the scoring he does on the field and not in the sack. But Max is a temptation he can't resist. Taking a chance, Riley and Max discover they have more in common than passion for soccer and hot sex between the sheets.

Just as they begin to trust each other outside the bedroom, Max is put in a no-win situation: write an article about Riley exposing accusations of drug use, or risk destroying his own credibility. If he does, he'll lose Riley. If he doesn't, he'll lose everything he's worked hard to achieve.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Review:

Main Characters:
Max is a sports blogger of some renown, on the brink of making it into the big time. He's 5'8", Swedish/Puerto Rican, newly-arrived in Denver, and out as a gay man. He purportedly doesn't mix business with pleasure, though he's quick enough to dip his toes into the company pool, even if he's not on the clock at the time. He's willing to bend the rules to make things work out, but he's not willing to completely compromise on his principles. We unfortunately never learn much more about him, but it's enough of a hint to make him a likeable character, one I wouldn't mind seeing fleshed out more.

Riley is the intensely-private MLS-champion forward of the Denver Blaze. He's gay but not out, not wanting to be defined as "the gay athlete". He tends to be a bit selfish but never annoyingly so. It's more that he has a narrower world-view than Max, and doesn't consider the same angles. Although he had moments in which I wanted to smack him, I think he came out well in the end.

Chemistry:
By the end of the second paragraph, Max is eyeballing Riley's crotch, so the attraction is pretty apparent straight off. They're a surprisingly cute couple given the conflict in their careers, but I never got the sense that they really knew each other as people. Maybe this is why I found the sex a little flat; I never got the sense of a real spark between them, beyond the physical. The physical is fine, but I like a little more development with my sex.

Secondary Characters:
The secondary cast is minimal, just enough window-dressing for the story. Most are off-screen or brief inserts, appearing just long enough to set something into motion before disappearing again. Some (like Max's editor) could have used just a little more development, but overall they worked well in the confines of the story.

Story:
There is a little bit of story around the sex, as the blurb would have you believe. It doesn't really come up until two-thirds of the way through the book, though; up to then, it's primarily a lot of sex. It moves along well once it's introduced, right up until Riley's grand gesture at the end.

Writing:
Although it got the job done, I can't help but feel that the writing was missing something. I never really got a sense of investment or urgency. It was also a little choppy for my tastes; those with a personal preference for shorter phrasing may find things more to their liking than I did. There were a few errors here and there, a couple a little confusing, but none particularly noteworthy.

Other Thoughts:
I have to admit finding it hard to believe that a sports blogger and a champion soccer star would have incomes convergent enough that they'd live next to each other. Maybe I'm vastly underrating what sports bloggers make (or overrating soccer players), but I never quite got past wondering how Max could afford to buy into the high-priced gated community in which he meets Riley.

Overall:
In the end, I did enjoy this story--it was a light, pleasant read. Something was missing for me, though, to take this from OK to good. I wouldn't have objected to seeing this story fleshed out more beyond its short length, but in and of itself there are certainly worse ways to push happy soccer player buttons.