Love in the Red Zone is a good sports romance this is different than the other ones I’ve read this year and I’m excited to read the next one!! Trenton and Jade just make my heart so happy! I highly recommend reading books outside of the typical white sport romance. It was such a refreshing read. The only reason this wasn’t a 5 start read is because it was a little long with the audiobook at over 13 hours.

The narration of this book was done by Elyce Anthony and Winston James. They really brought this book to life, for me, and made me love every character in this story! I can’t wait for the rest of the Connecticut Kings.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for the audio-arc of Love in the Red Zone!

DNF, this story just wasn't for me. I didn't really like the narration, the couple, or the plot. overall I just found it really childish and progressively repetitive.

1⭐️
This is my honest review in exchange for this NetGalley arc.
Omg i wanted this book to be over as soon as it begun. I have absolutely nothing positive to say. I hate this book with a passion. I dont like the characters, the relationships, ans the non-existing plot. This book was too damn long, all for it to be repetitive and boring. I didnt like Jade, her selfishness, insecurity, and lack of respect for Trent’s boundaries made her so insufferable. Trent started off okay and then became so boringgg, this man is less interesting than a piece of cardboard. Them together was a disaster, all they did was fight over how insecure she is and over how he cant trust her, and then have sex. That’s it, i summed up the whole book. This girl had no backbone and was begging him to have sex, like girl STAND UP. I got second hand embarassment from her. They had no connection, as a reader, all i saw was sexual attraction between them, and that’s it. Every character in this book annoyed me. The only reason i finished this is because it’s an arc. I want my time back 😭.

I was provided the Audio book Love In the Red Zone by Love Belvin by NetGalley for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this audio book. I knew nothing about this book going in, and requested it based on being a sports romance. While the book was very long at almost 14 hours, I found that it was easy to stay engaged in the story.

The Audiobook had dual POV narration, Jade is narrated by Elyce Anthony, Trent is narrated by Winston James. They did a fantastic job. I always love when you get dual narration, and sometimes when the male narrator reads any female dialog and vice versa it can really fall flat. That was not the case for these two.

This book was SPICY! I think the Spicy to Story ratio was on point, but would not recommend this to someone who likes there spice mild. There was also heavy amounts of religion, so if you are opposed to Christianity I would not suggest this book for you. I am not a religious person at all, and I didn't mind it.

#LoveIntheRedZone #NetGalley

Thanks to Netgalley for the audio ARC. Love in the Red Zone was originally published in 2013, so I'm not going to say that my experience reading this book is going to keep me from reading more from Love Belvin, but I am going to say that this book was not written for me. That is both literally true as Love in the Red Zone is a Black Romance that is definitely not written to the white gaze. But the way I actually mean it is that this book is not written for me because it's got an interesting flavor of Christianity in the book that is so far from my experience with Christianity that I couldn't get out of my head enough to set this aside. If you've seen my thoughts on Late Bloomer, this book felt something like that, where this piece of the puzzle was ringing such a discordant note that I could not get into it. Unfortunately, in addition to that piece, I didn't get the romance. Now, I love a single parent romance. Like, so much. And generally, I love a sports romance. But the plotting and pacing of this one just didn't quite jive for me because I feel like I never actually understood when or why Trent started to trust Jade. More specifically, I guess, I feel like I never saw him start to trust her. Their entire relationship felt more like a deck of cards that could fall at the stiffest wind than one that could go the distance.

But I was lucky enough to receive the audio ARC, so let's focus on the narration for a minute. I really liked the male narrator's narration style, but I could have done without the way "Trenton" was moaned out in both of their narrations. It's such a weird thing to stick in my mind, but stick it did.

Anyway, I want to continue this series because it's a back and forth with CCJ and I love CCJ's writing, but I'll admit, I'm a little nervous now.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio.

I really wanted to like this but I just didn’t. I couldn’t get in to it. I might give it another try sometime.

Sports 🏈
Character development
Slow burn
African American romance
Single mom
Strangers to friends to lovers


Audible narrated by: Elyce Anthony and Winston James. The narrators brought out the personality of each character well. The story was easy to follow and entertaining to listen to.

Jade Matthews and Trenton Bailey are our two main characters. They both have a past and are struggling to get to a place where they can move forward

Jade is a struggling single mother. She is very independent. She juggles, single parenting, classes, and working to make a better life for her and her son, Kyrie. Sometimes she lets her pride get in the way, but overall she is a wonderful mother that is willing to sacrifice for her son. Becoming a teen mom was not in her plans but she has is doing the best she can. Her last relationship has made it difficult to trust and she is focusing on her future.

Trent has been given a second chance after almost destroying his career. Through friends, determination and his new found faith things are finally going his way. He is a good guy, with a huge heart. He is focused on his future with no room for romance. He has been burned and is cautious.

They both learn to trust again. There are plenty of challenges along the way. They make you root for them individually as well as a couple. I found the side characters interesting. I will definitely look at others books to add to my list.

I thought this book was ok. IMO It needed more chemistry between the 2 MCs. The plot was ok, but it was a little boring, I thought it needed something thrilling to bring it up a notch.

Loved this on audio!

Really fun football series im excited to continue reading it. Belvins writing is a blast

This book has been on my TBR for a whole. Thank you for the audio ARC to read, I really enjoyed the story, I love how Love Belvin incorportes faith into her stories in a way that's not overwhelming.. I didn't care for the female narrator too much but did enjoy the male.

I decided to listen to this book because I like Winston James as a narrator. Elyce Anthony was okay as a narrator. I just didn't care for some of her male voices. Love in he Red Zone chronicles the romance between Jade, a financially struggling and ambitious single mother, and Trenton, an ex-NFL player hoping to rejoin the NFL. The story explores how family history affects the self esteem and relationship capabilities of both characters. Both characters mature through the story as their character flaws are explained and dealt with through their growing relationship. The book was longer than necessary, but did showcase character development. It also follows Trenton's attempt to re-enter the NFL after spending time in prison. The story does have several "spicy" scenes. Love in the Red Zone deals with the following topics: single mothers, ex-convicts, dating as celebrities, dating as a Christian, financial difficulties

Tropes:
NFL romance
Single mom
Opposites attract
Temporary roommates to lovers
Cinnamon role hero
She’s homeless and he takes her and her son in temporarily

I fell in love with the characters quickly. This is everything you'd want in a romance book. Story is realistic, not too far fetched compared to real life romance. Great storytelling, I am also glad there is another book coming, because I wanted to know so much more about Trent and Jade. I am excited I found a new author, and of course, am a lover of football so how can you not give this five stars! Great, easy read!

This was fun to listen to but I found the language a little hard to understand at times (White Aussie farming girl 👋). I still got the idea of what was going on but it was just a tiny bit frustrating at times. The story itself was wonderful, heartwarming and spicy. A little heavy on the Christianity aspects for me but I get it, and it was important to the story. The sport aspect was spot on. Just enough! The narrators were wonderful! Elyce Anthony and Winston James were fabulous!

Big thanks to NetGalley, Tantor Audio and Love Belvin for this early release copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review

I couldn't engage with the storyline despite trying to give it a chance by going back and listening carefully. Thank NetGalley for the opportunity.

I was fortunate enough to listen to the audio for this story and I absolutely loved this from beginning to end. Love in the red zone is a sports romance combined with a single parent romance. This was such a phenomenal read and I was captivated from beginning to end.

Love in the Red Zone was an in depth romance with two characters coming into the story with individual struggles and challenges, and needing to give into love to conquer them. This romance is a longer romance, but there’s so much detail that you won’t lose interest or wish it would speed up. The dynamics between the male MC and female MC are complex, sexy, and intriguing. This story has cute and funny moments to lighten up the true struggles in life and depths in this story.

I listened to the audiobook which was read by two narrators who did a great job bringing the characters to life. I listened at 1.75x speed with 1.75-2.0 x speed being my normal audiobook speed.

Thank you NetGalley and RB Media for this advanced audiobook copy.

I was so excited to see one of my favorite book series by one of my favorite authors coming to audio and was not disappointed. The narration was on point and flowed beautifully. I love Winston James and Elyce Anthony as narrators, so having them voice Trent and Jade was an absolute pleasure.

This is a story of redemption, growth, and insta-love. Jade and Trent had a lot of learning and growing to do when it came to trusting someone with the most vulnerable parts of themselves. From difficult family dynamics to interference from the media and ex-lovers, they had a lot stacked against them. It's refreshing to see a love story that doesn't shy away from depicting the ups and downs of a relationship: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Highly recommended.

This has to be one of the worst books I didn’t DNF. The plot was intriguing, but the execution? Pitiful. This is a couple who I rooted to breakup, and I hate that. Everything was repeated 5/6/7 times, and yet barely anything happened. But the worst part of this book was that the MMC calls her vagina “mushy walls” in the middle of a sex scene.

It was fun and quick read for me. The characters were amazing and even were penned down perfectly by the author. The pace was well maintained throughout the whole book this making it more enjoyable. It held in my attention till the end of the book.