Sports psychologist Kip Rigsbee feels like an outsider, not part of the players’ circle and not accepted by the coaches of the college team he’s been hired to help. But that hasn’t kept him from feeling the gravitational pull of defensive coordinator Greg Browne, despite the fact that Greg dismisses Kip’s methods as “motivational bullsh*t.” An accident brings the unacknowledged attraction between the two men to the surface, but the common ground of their erotic connection may not be enough to help Kip overcome Greg’s determination to keep his personal life separate from his job.
Janey Chapel found a paperback romance in her grandmother's bookcase at the age of eleven, inhaled it in one sitting, and then proceeded to devour thousands of romances in a variety of genres over the course of several decades. Eventually, her husband said, "Stop reading! Start writing!" After a lifetime in the South, Janey now lives in the Northeast with her husband and daughter, where she volunteers with the PTO, struggles to adapt to actual winter, and writes fiction in her spare time.
Two hot guys who work together on a college football team, one a sports psychologist and the other a defensive coach. They're attracted to each other but only when one of them gets hurt and the other steps in to help does that attraction move beyond . Sold.
I really enjoyed this but it was too short. I wanted more of Kip and Greg and I want the end of the story not just the beginning.
3.25* Kip is the new guy on the football training team, he's a sports psychologist so of course he isn't taken overly seriously by his fellow coaches. Greg is one of those other coaches, with the only difference being they have been having longing/lusting looks going on but absolutely no intention of doing anything about it, at least as far as Greg and his very deep closet are concerned. Now, of course to make it exciting something had to happen, so Greg needs Kip's help and they are thrown into very close proximity for a few days and things heat up. A lot. I would have rated it higher, but it was not only short, but at least for me a very opened ended story. I would say it's barely a HFN.
Both this one and Maritime men are well written studies in men getting to know each other. The characters interact realistically and have conversations and emotions that seem in character throughout the story.
My biggest issue with these is that the stories end at the point when the real story is just beginning. Horny men finding a way to each other is the easiest part. Coming out of the closet or conducting a life together in it is the interesting part to me. However, that is just where the books end.
This leaves so much open and in the case of this book and Maritime Men the outlook, in my opinion, is not good for any long term relationship between the two men. While the getting together is hot the HFN leaves me sad when all is said and done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This is a short, entertaining story with a couple of masculine men that should appeal to readers but it does have some significant problems. "TLC 101" reads very similar to Chapel’s other quick novella, "Maritime Men," with two masculine men who have rough, sweaty sex but talk very little. Here the set up is that one of the men breaks his ankle in the shower (cue soap jokes) and must rely on another coach to help take care of him in the short term. That leads to some hot and heavy sex despite a casted leg with a few conversations thrown in for variety. The plot is basic and the men may appeal to some readers more than others. Since this particular offering feels so reminiscent of the previous book, but nowhere near as good, I hope future novellas will have more variety.
The characters of Kip and Greg are classic opposites attract. Whereas Kip is outgoing, energetic, and attempts to bond with the team players, Greg is closeted, rigid, and tight lipped. Kip is a slob with clothes, books, and boxes strewn around his apartment where Greg is neat to the point of color coordinating. Greg lives and breathes football whereas Kip loves the sport but also has a life. The two have very little in common other than their love of football and gay sex but this seems to be enough of a basis for the short-term relationship. However there is an emotional connection, albeit brief, when Kip helps Greg open up slightly but the focus is on sex and hanging out for a few days. Unfortunately this connection felt forced and awkward instead of natural and easy.
While this is not a bad plot line and certainly gives a laid back, easy approach to two men who hook up with the possibility of more, the story seems to lack a depth that makes this an easy book to read and forget. There is also a lack of a strong happy ending, instead after three days giving a very vague possibility to a future relationship. This didn’t bother me but some readers are cautious when a happy ending is not very strong so readers that require such may be disappointed. Especially since the ending is abrupt and problematic.
Some problems inherent in the story in addition to Greg’s dislikable personality were Greg’s refusal to accept any sort of pain medication and the quick sex. While his reasoning is clear, it seems ridiculous for a man of his age to still subscribe to something he did almost twenty years ago and instead writhe in pain. This ties into the ridiculous and out of place argument in the emergency room about medicating players so they could play sooner. Greg is neither a player nor being medicated to play; they wanted to set his cast. Furthermore Greg’s willingness to have sex almost immediately after breaking his ankle is suspect as he was writhing in pain one minute and sex starved the next but these are minor problems and easily overlooked.
Other than these problems, the story really ends just as the most interesting aspects start. There are numerous questions left unanswered and dangling from Greg’s closeted sexuality to what this means for their future, their jobs working together, the football community, their families, if they are having a relationship or simply a few more days of sex together. Furthermore why would these two men be together since they have very few things in common and do nothing but mostly concentrate on the sex. All of these questions are left hanging without indications to a wrapped up ending. Whereas such things were more acceptable in "Maritime Men" given the nature of the military, here the questions are more glaring and disappointing. For all the problems listed, this story is mostly a quick novella with some classic characters in a familiar setting and may appeal to other readers who can overlook the problems.
Kip Rigsbee doesn't like mornings and a 6:22am phone call from South Guilford Hospital by Coach Greg Browne, on the first day of spring break is probably the last thing he expected waking up to. Coach Browne is Kip's upstairs neighbor, he's also the defensive coordinator at the local university and he can be one hard-to-handle cantankerous SOB sometimes. In the hospital, with a broken ankle, a busted-up face and a wrecked car is one of those times. By the time Kip rolls out of bed and scrambles into the ER, Coach Browne has successfully alienated and frustrated three nurses, a couple of doctors and a lab tech, all of which are standing inside his little curtain room attempting to treat him. Fortunately, Kip is the sports psychologist for the same team Browne coaches and has a little experience handling situations like this. In a matter of minutes, Kip has Browne calmed down enough that the medical staff is able to get a cast on his injured ankle. The cast they put on has to be on for three days and in that time Browne will be unable to put any weight on that leg. After three days, he will need to go back into a medical center and get his current cast taken off and replaced with a walking cast.
That is the scene that opens up this book and leads to Coach Greg Browne spending three days in Kip's apartment, where Kip can take care of him. In those three days, Kip discloses a little about himself, where he grew up, what his family is like, how his childhood was and what past event started him on the path to sports psychology. Browne on the other hand, isn't so forthcoming, by the end of those few days you know he loves football and is passionate about what he does, he's gay and in the closet and that he has an affection for Kip, but other than that, his character is a bit of a mystery.
This book ends rather abruptly, with the two men at the office of the orthopedic specialist who Browne goes to see on the third day. After seeing the severity of the ankle break, the doctor there orders him to stay in the cast he has, with crutches, for two more weeks. That means two more weeks of Kip, two more weeks for the tentative relationship they've started in the last few days to strengthen and grow.
I enjoyed this story, it was fascinating to see a relationship begin to bloom between the two very dissimilar men and it's ending left me with a certainty that things would progress, at least somewhat, between them. If walls can be broken and an intimate connection started in just three days, who knows what two more weeks could do.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Can I just say how much I really hate this genre for making me feel like a hopeful crumb-cooing-pigeon dependant on the kindness of strangers for these meager handouts. So-if you're in the mood for a short-hot-athletically-inclined release then you'll probably fall under the momentary spell of Kip & Greg. Just be prepared your affair w/them will be far too brief.
My only other complaint (other than short length) is towards the end. The actual penile-penetrative moment was off-page and was a bit of a wtf-mumbling-moment. Very uncharacteristic for this writer (IDK-maybe it was a fast-break for the finish-line).
But I will say Kip & Greg were by far Chapel's better characters. Quintessential guy-characters..all pleasantly-pissy-stubbornly-f'd-up-kind-of-characters. Just my speed. If she ever decides to come out of exile and bring them around again..they've always got a nice-warm-welcome home in me.
This was for sure a very nice story and it had the potential for being a great long novel, but this was only an appetizer. I actually can’t say if the author has any intention to write more about these two men, and so this was only a way to tease the reader, or if she cleverly built a novella that had the wide breath of a novel.
Kip is a sport psychologist for a professional football team. He is the newbie in the team and he has not exactly the role everyone else thinks at as useful, but he is a nice guy and one that you can easily fall in friendship with without even realizing it. And if Kip has a special eye for Greg, one of the coaches, it all remains at “eyes” level, he has never made a move on the other man, even if he thought sometime to have seen a similar knowing look on the other man. Then Greg has a simple but serious accident and he is forced in bed at least for three days, and a stunned Kip discovers that he is listed as contact in case of emergency. Kip doesn’t think twice and he finds himself with a growling Greg in bed… well, it was not exactly the way he has wished to do it, but the result is pretty much the same.
The entire story is basically the play of hint and innuendos that will bring Kip and Greg to admit that there is something more between them. It’s not the story of a forever and happily ever after love, actually I think that, in the end, Kip and Greg have only realized that they are good together, but there is not yet real love between them, at least not a love they have acknowledged. Once in a time, this is not a friends with benefits relationship that will lead to love, this is actually the description of how two men start a friends with benefits relationship. It’s not said, and this is exactly the reason why I think there is potential for a longer story, that between Kip and Greg it’s not love, only that love, for now, it’s not the main purpose of the story. Love, at this moment, will be too complicated: there is always the usual problem of being gay in a world, professional football, where the don’t ask don’t tell policy it’s pretty much the same as in the army. Without love between them, or as I said, without an acknowledged love, Kip and Greg can pretend that sex is enough, and that, if they are discreet, they can be together without too much clamour.
Probably for now it’s enough, and being a novella, it’s not necessary for this story to find a solution to their problems. But the questions are all there, as it’s the potential: I wouldn’t mind to see Kip brings Greg at home, like a prodigal son who comes back home with a coveted prize, “see mom and dad (or better grandmom and granddad)? Even if I couldn’t be like all my other cousins, at least I was able to find a man like them!”. Now don’t get me wrong, between Kip and his family there are no big issue, and I was thinking more to the funny aspect of the scene than anything else.
Also the characterization of Kip and Greg was quite original, for once it was not the professional player who was a slob at home, and controlled and quiet Kip was not the same in his private life, like all the energy he didn’t spend yelling in a playfield, was reversed in creating chaos in his apartment. Instead Greg freak control’s attitude was more in role with the semi-closeted case, putting a controlled mask outside, also at his home, when inside he is burning to finally be able to do as he wants, without need to hide.
This was enjoyable but it felt like a yummy appetizer as opposed to being a full meal. The author does a good job establishing who the MCs are right off the bat and they have a pre-existing relationship from living in the same building and coaching the same college football team, which allowed the author to get right to the romance development. Greg is a big, gruff grumpy-grump while Kip is the newly hired sports psychologist so their polar opposite views on many sports related things have kept their relationship a bit antagonistic, despite both of them being attracted to each other.
When Greg breaks his ankle and winds up at the hospital, he contacts Kip for help since he's not getting along with the hospital staff. Once Kip manages to get Greg home, it's decided that Greg will stay in Kip's apartment with him for a few days, since he can't handle the stairs to get to his own place. There's lots of wonderful hurt-comfort as Kip helps Greg hobble around, bathe and get changed and Greg's feelings for Kip are a lot harder to hide when the guy is in pain and also getting what he's wanted for ages. There's nothing original or groundbreaking - readers know exactly how things will go and I did enjoy the smut scenes, which were smoking hot! I also liked Greg and Kip's dynamic and especially how they both respected each other's abilities despite how opposite they are.
That being said, the story not only didn't break any new ground but it's very basic. and that's when the story ends. Since I really liked the MCs and the writing style, I would have loved to have the story be longer and include more plotlines. But overall, it was an enjoyable little story that showcased why I adore this author's work and why I'm sad that she's stopped publishing years ago.
Janey Chapel has done it again! Her writing is truly exquisitely well crafted and a pleasure to read. This time she has created a story that is the perfect fantasy: two hot guys forced to spend time together in the same apartment... Both of the characters are extremely realistic and believable, and both are very appealing. And, the story of how they gradually come to reveal their attraction for each other is captivating. The only disappointment you will have is that the novel isn't longer. Here's hoping for a sequel--each character's traits and personal background are detailed and unforgettable, and I'd be delighted to read more about their "adventures"!
This was an enjoyable, fun read, and like other reviewers, I definitely wish the story had been longer. The author has a simple, engaging voice, and I liked her guys very much.
Well this would have been really good if it didn't end so abruptly. It felt like the first half of a book that was published as a novella with a sort of HFN ending. :-/
I liked this book. Janey Chapel is really good at writing characters. But the book was very short and only covered the span of 2-3 days. It was enjoyable for what it was, but there wasn't much to sink your teeth into and there's no indication that these two even entered into a relationship beyond a few days of sex, let alone anything that will last. And that might not be necessary for everyone, so in that sense it was fine. Mostly it's just a pleasant way to pass 74 pages but not anything that will stick with me.
I spent most of the book wondering what the hell the MCs saw in each other. I didn't feel much of an emotional connection between the MCs, but perhaps with more time... I felt like the story was a bit unfinished when I got to the end.
Apart from that, and the neck-breaking POV changes, I liked it well enough.
A hot little morsel. Just don't ever think of this as any kind of grand romance. It's too short, the focus too much on their sex and little else, and the ending too rushed, for that. But it delivers if you're looking for a short, hot read.
Again, the author masters the short novella. I do believe these characters could be develop into longer stories or other novella series. I did like the characters as I do with all of her books. I went on a Janey Chapel binge and read all of them in two days.
I like how Janey Chapel writes. The characters are interesting and entertaining. They struggle insides themselves and with each other. The sex is pretty dang good, too.
Very sexy story, who doesn't love a hot, sexy, stubborn gay man. I think the characters were exceptional and would have been even better in a longer story.