Review: 3.5 stars-heroine with issues
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
3.5 stars: KNOWING THE SCORE is the first instalment in Kat Latham’s adult, contemporary London Legends romance series. This is rugby player Spencer Bailey and Caitlyn Sweeney’s storyline. When Caitlyn saves an elderly gentleman who has suffered a heart attack in the London subway, she will eventually meet the most beautiful man she has ever seen. What Caitlyn doesn’t know is that the gentleman’s grandson is Spencer Bailey -one of the star players on London’s world class rugby team and the man who would steal her heart.The focus of the story is Caitlyn and Spencer’s building relationship but a relationship that has only two to three months until it ends. Caitlyn is an American who is currently working in London with a disaster relief organization and her visa is about to expire but Caitlyn is a woman who has some major issues with intimacy and sex. Spencer promises to take things slow but in the end, Caitlyn is a woman who isn’t sure exactly what it is she wants.KNOWING THE SCORE is a storyline about a woman so traumatized by her past that she is afraid to let anyone into her heart, her mind or her body. In fact, she is so afraid of physical intimacy that she recoils at the mere touch of a hand.  In this, much of the storyline finds Spencer trying to engage Caitlyn in the physical act of touching and Caitlyn struggling to let go of the past.The characters were interesting in that they both had issues that needed to be addressed but Caitlyn’s fears, although not necessarily unfounded, were a bit of a distraction throughout most of the story.  She was a woman who ran from the things in her private life yet she went head first into a war torn area of Afghanistan where all women are at risk. In this, her character development was controversial and contradictory at times.The storyline, as well as the relationship, were slow to build. When faced with her own choices Caitlyn never considered how it would affect Spencer and in this she was a difficult character to like.  Spencer, as the hero, was not an innocent but he was far from an alpha male-he had patience beyond what should be expected; a loving relationship with his grandfather; and a dark mark in his past that once revealed will send Caitlyn running-once again. The misunderstandings could have been easily solved by Caitlyn did what she did best-she ran.Written in third person POV, the writing style is simple. The premise takes the reader from London to Australia and Afghanistan. The storyline and premise were interesting but got lost in the heroine’s issues and need to run. There were several high and low points and, a happily ever after but at times I wondered if everything was going to work out-in the end.I was gifted a copy