This was a decent story and I somewhat enjoyed both the hero and the heroine. Brendan and Erin were both well-written characters. I do like a good sports romance and an old-night stand story. However, nothing really stood out making it a great book.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book was not for me. I found the characters to be not well thought out and the plot stretching. Too much blackmail and childish behavior for my liking.

I loved this book! Super cute. Will recommend for sure! This book was exactly what I didn't know I was looking for!

Very interesting spin on the usual hot sports player falls for member of team management trope that so many people are writing right now, what with the gambling spin. Well-written and so fun to read. I really enjoyed this one.

I enjoyed the first couple of books (Crossing Hearts and Defending Hearts). This one was a disappointment. Brendan and Erin had a one night stand several months ago. They cross paths again, at a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. Both are gamblers.
I enjoy flawed characters, if they are likable and if what they do is redeemable. I didn't like Erin's actions. I felt what she did made her untrustworthy and very unforgivable. She was in a position of power and abused that power. The end goal didn't justify what she did.
Brendan was likable and I could sympathize with him. His motivations were understandable.

eARC courtesy of NetGalley and Kensington Books (Lyrical Shine).
Published on March 20th

Six months ago Brendan Young and Erin Bailey spent an incredible night together. However, now with Brendan in trouble over gambling on games and Erin in her new career as he Championship Soccer League Director of Ethics and Advocacy, she knows she should keep her distance from Brendan, if she doesn't want to lose everything she's worked so hard for. Yet, staying away from Brendan isn't easy, and the closer they get, the more she finds herself wanting the one thing she's never wanted -- a relationship. Will she and Brendan get their happy ever after, or will everything she's worked so hard for cause the pair to walk away from the other before they crash and burn?

The first two books of this series are absolutely brilliant and had me looking forward to reading more about the men of the Atlanta Skyline Soccer team and I've got to say that Brendan and Erin's story was an absolute delight, as both are struggling with addiction that could get them into trouble. Will someone discover what's going on between them that goes beyond the pair being a couple? However, it was from the moment the hero and heroine came face-to-face for the first time that had me smiling, as Brendan can't believe his eyes as to why the heroine would be at the same place he is.

As for the dialogue, it was intense due to the main characters back stories and the obstacles these two face on their journey to happy ever after including who will get the upper hand in their attempts to blackmail each other. Will it be Erin or Brendan? Moreover, the heroine is resilient, courageous and I liked how determined she was in her game with Brendan. I also liked how hard-working she is, which is proven by all she's trying to do for women in soccer. Yet, what I liked most of all about the heroine was the decisions she makes to be able to finally get herself in control when it came to her needing to turn up at the same meeting that Brendan did in the moment when they first came face-to-face. While the hero, he's done well in his career as a soccer player and I couldn't help but sympathize with all that he's going through after being caught for gambling. Will he finish his career on a high? I also liked how confident and smart the hero was and that he would do anything to protect the heroine, especially when she might lose the one thing that's very important to her. Will the hero be able to protect her?

Overall, Ms. Crowley has delivered another captivating read for this series where the chemistry between Erin and Brendan was heady and convincing; the romance was delightful and had me liking these two together; and the ending had me loving the heroine's determination to win back the hero after things go awry between them. Luckily, she's just as determined to protect Brendan as he is to protect her. However, it was the epilogue that wrapped this story up nicely, as Brendan and Erin are so happy together and the hero makes everything more incredible with the surprises he has in store for Erin. I would recommend Saving Hearts by Rebecca Crowley, if you enjoy the enemy to lovers trope or books by authors Jen McLaughlin, Cindi Madsen, Amy Daws and Jennifer Ryder.

the latest atlanta skyline novel, saving hearts, focuses on goaltender brendan young, benched for being linked to a gambling website, as part of his rehabilitation he is forced to go to gambler's anonymous meetings. when he runs into erin bailey, the league's new director of ethics and advocacy, attending a meeting for a compulsive gambling problem things between them get heated.

erin and brendan have a history. from college there's always been an interest, an attraction, an awareness. then one night in vegas, things between them burn. and afterward, erin wants to pretend to forget it. erin doesn't believe in relationships. but brendan is looking to make a life with someone.

here's the thing, brendan does gamble, but he gambles because he's got a crazy memory and a brain that works too quickly. he's analytical and can easily calculate odds and probabilities. it's what makes him the brilliant player he is. and gambling is one way to quiet his overactive mind by giving it something specific to focus on. and i guess i'm one of those people who doesn't understand why gambling is viewed as such a vice. especially since brendan's particular brand of gambling is most akin to playing the stock market.

erin and brendan come up with a crazy plan that allows them to indulge in their gambling, while also following all league rules. the time they spend together changes the boundaries of their relationship. soon erin has to admit that even if they aren't having sex she and brendan have a relationship. so why not put sex back on the table. and then when everything is on the line, brendan steps up. and in order to make sure they can have it all, erin has some hard choices to make. and she finally does step up. the thing about these two is that brendan is very much the grown up in this relationship. erin is still figuring everything out, and if it weren't for the crazy chemistry that sparks between them, it's very easy to wonder why brendan tries at all.

**saving hearts will publish on march 20, 2018. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/kensington press (lyrical shine) in exchange for my honest review.

Trigger warnings: gambling addiction, anxiety

This is the third book in the Atlanta Skyline series, but the first I’m reading. While there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with the book, it unfortunately hit one of my knee-jerk hard no’s. Also, I’m not a particularly big soccer fan, nor have I read the earlier books in the series, so I’m going to lay part of the blame for my middling rating on that.

“Do these meetings help?”
“If I needed help, maybe, but I don’t. I only turn up because it was one of my manager’s conditions for staying on the team.”
“But don’t you think that—” She stopped herself, rephrased. “You had a lot of activity on that betting website. Huge sums of money in and out. All on soccer games.”
“Soccer games in Europe,” he corrected. “I never bet on my own league. Gambling never interfered with my career or my personal life, and I won far more than I lost. Everyone at these meetings talks about hitting their rock bottom and realizing things had to change, but that didn’t happen to me. I had a hobby—a hobby that certain people decided was in violation of some dubious moral code.”


Both main characters are either at the end of their soccer careers or have retired – Brendan, at 33, is in his last year as a keeper, and Erin has already moved on to a job with the Championship Soccer League. Prior to the beginning of the book, Brendan has been busted for gambling on the European soccer league, and the CSL passed down a harsh punishment, with the end result being that he’s looking at ending his last year of professional soccer as the third backup. Erin is the new head of a position that seems to encompass both ethics and outreach. Erin’s not so much interested in the ethics piece – she has her own gambling issues with slot machine phone apps – but more in furthering the image of women’s soccer.

It’s kind of an “ends-justify-the-means” thing going on, with a unrepentant gambler accepting the ethics position and investigating other players for gambling violations, just in the pursuit of getting more funding for women’s soccer. And, as someone who played women’s sports, I get it. There’s very few professional women’s sports that actually have any kind of public awareness, and it’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation – without the ticket sales or sponsorships to fund better equipment, stadiums, etc it’s hard to draw in more butts in stadium seats or lucrative deals. Erin has things to prove, and rather than rooting her on I just found her kind of … annoying. She’s confident – at her job and in bed – but it’s mostly a carefully curated show. Her single-minded pursuit of her job was, at times, seriously unethical. Her boss has tied funding for her women’s soccer promotions to writing a big expose focused on ethics violations in the CSL, and wants it to focus on Brendan. Though she feels icky about the whole thing, rather than acting like an adult and trying to work things out with Brendan, she basically threatens to blackmail him unless he cooperates with her investigation. And while she admits to herself that she’d never actually end his career over what she thinks is entirely overblown nonsense, she’s perfectly content leading him to believe that she would. I had a hard time liking her after that particular action.

Brendan is given a deep backstory, full of working hard to get a full scholarship to play college soccer, his family status as the forgotten middle child, and an almost crippling anxiety disorder. His ability to analyze data and predict players’ actions may be helpful on the field, but it can also be overwhelming. He discovered, through a statistics class, that running numbers for gambling bets is the perfect self-medication for his brain that won’t shut off. Erin, on the other hand, isn’t really given that sort of explanation. She’s the pampered princess of a well-off family, whose parents fought to find a boys’ travel league for her to play on as a kid. Her main motivation seems to be that she’s a former women’s soccer player trying to gain recognition for her sport. I never really got a feeling for what started the whole slot machine gambling, other than that it provided a hit of adrenaline that being on the field used to or a time waster. With Brendan being such an incredibly sympathetic character, it put Erin’s faults more in the spotlight for me.

And of course, it’s love that heals all – they’re both so busy obsessing over the other person that their gambling addiction starts to take a back seat. While I’m a humongous fan of this trope, I prefer that love is the catalyst that makes the person themselves reevaluate their problems and take steps to fix them, with the support of the other partner. In this case, it’s more like Brendan and Erin are so absorbed in thinking about each other that they just don’t have time to think about gambling, and they don’t consciously realize it’s happening. I just didn’t find it very realistic, and I was worried that once they were out of the first-blush love they’d both fall back into the same old patterns.

Overall, my reservations about Erin led to me not enjoying the book as much as I’d’ve wished. I would think a reader who doesn’t have such a knee-jerk reaction to blackmail or who loves soccer would enjoy the book much more. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work well for me.

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Well written but ultimately felt like watching an unhealthy relationship unfold. The goalkeeper for the Atlanta Skyline, Brendan Young, is riding out his the end of his contract. The previous year he had been busted for gambling and penalized by his club. Brendan is an addict who uses gambling to maintain his ADD and other undiagnosed disorders. While at Gamblers Anonymous Brendan runs into Erin Bailey, a college friend who is now the head of the Ethics committee of his soccer club.

Erin is in hiding, she is an gambling addict who is deep in denial of her problems. As the head of the League's Ethics committee she is charged with rooting out corruption and gambling within the league. She takes the job with the hopes of parlaying the position into one that will allow her to perform outreach for the Women's League. Erin recognizes that she will have to make compromises in order to accomplish her goals and one of those compromises is to make Brendan the face of the new gambling and ethics program the Ethics committee wants to put on.

Brendan and Erin have a history together and after some cat and mouse antics, they agree to work through their gambling addictions together because after all, they are too smart to get caught.

Look, this is well written and engaging but I finished the book feeling like this was a relationship that had real unacknowledged issues. If the story had ended with them both walking hand in hand to therapy I would have been much happier. Instead they went off like love would fix all of their issues. Again, well written but I won't pick it up again.

This was such an interesting, engrossing story and I absolutely loved it.

It's the third in the series and my second by this author and I have come to love her complex characters and the unusual take on sports romance. In this case we have a goalkeeper at the end of his career, his reputation ruined by a gambling scandal. And the heroine is a former pro footballer player herself, trying to further her career in the Championship soccer League but also boost women's soccer as much as she can. The cicumstances put them in opposite ends, turning them into enemies but ones with burning memories of a hot one-night stand between them and a shared secret (they both love gambling).

Brendan was an amazing character and loved him so much. He is a bit of a loner, hiding so much from everyone - teammates and family, so lonely despite his success. I found the way he dealt with his anxiety and compulsive thoughts through focusing on sports statistics and placing bets on games really fascinating.

He was on his way out of the soccer world and and his focus was fully on the post-sports future, new life, different goals. All this made him reluctant to start anything with Erin despite the chemistry between them. I read him as on the ace spectrum, the one-night stand they had was an exception for him rather than the rule and he was really not comfortable with a friends-with-benefits arrangement. I felt he was not interested in sex unless there were some romantic feelings involved and they were they on his part from the start and he just wanted to avoid the hurt the inevitable break-up would cause him.

Erin, oh Erin was fabulous. She was the opposite of Brendan - outgoing, outspoken, more sexually adventurous than him, definitely the one doing the chase rather than being wooed. She came off as pushy at times which I didn't like very much but she did try to come up with a solution that would work for both of them and in the end she did in a way.

Like Brendan she is a gambler, though of a different kind. For him this was a way to deal with his anxiety and hyperactive mind, while for her it was a way to decompress and deal with stress. In different ways they both needed gambling to survive teh current turmoil in their lives, it was an escape which while financially profitable for him was otherwise disastrous for both of them.

Brendan's outlook on his gambling was something I have not read before. I felt he got better hold of his anxiety issues and found some calm after getting together with Erin. In my reading it was finding the partner he had been looking for and generally moving towards a situation that caused him less stress that helped Brendan cut down on his obsession with soccer statistics and betting. At the same time I have this tiny bit of worry that it might be interpreted as a love-cures-all solution and would have liked a stronger statement to the opposite in the text. On the other hand, Erin starts therapy for her gambling addiction which brings some balance to the story and treats addiction as a serious issue which requires professional help to deal with.

On the plus side I liked how Brandon and Erin made things work between them, neither giving up their dream but finding a compromise - more travel, some adjustments to his and her plans for the future in order to make room for their plans.

There was a plot twist towards the end which I found unnecessary and annoying. The journalist threatening them and the sudden change in the attitude of her boss and the way he came through as a saviour for them both in the end didn't sit well with me. I felt it took away the agency from Brendan and Erin to solve their issues/determine their future on their own.

Overall, I enjoyed this romance a lot. We get two complex characters working through their differences in order to be together, making compromises and finding common ground for their future which is one of my favourite things in romance.

The cover screams all sorts of dark delights and the blurb hints at a story with some depth. Alas, what's inside doesn't quite live up to expectations. Saving Hearts introduces an interesting combination that one doesn't come across too often, i.e., gambling addiction and office romance, but it only serves as a scrim for getting the characters together. Brendan and Erin previous acquaintance and current job positions make this a moot point. The choice to have Brendan be rather callous with the 12 steps (because of course, he doesn't have an addition he's justing going through the motions due to some messy PR) devalues the treatment process. Additionally using meetings as a sting to boost Erin's career does little to endear her to the reader. Apathy aside, if you came for the romance, that too is a disappointment. The chemistry between these two is tepid at best and entirely forgettable. Disappointing and somewhat insulting read.

I really wanted to love this book, because I thought the 2nd book in the series was terrific.

But the set-up of this one from the very beginning was just very challenging for me. From the blurb, I expected the gambling addiction storyline, but I was just super troubled with how it all plays out, especially i those first few chapters. Brendan's not *really* addicted (he says) to gambling, he's just being forced to go to the meetings after getting his hand slapped by the league. And Erin who really is addicted, is the league's Director of Ethics and Advocacy. By the end of the 2nd chapter, they're blackmailing each other. Yay?

Although I soldiered through, it was hard. I usually have ZERO problems with a prickly, difficult heroine. I like them! But a dishonest one? A way more difficult thing, as it turns out. And by the end, when she finally gets caught, there's a part where she makes a list of pros/cons about what to do. And her pro list isn't "it's the right thing to do, it's that she loves Brendan. Falling in love doesn't cure addiction, and it never has, and probably never will.

No one's perfect and imperfect people deserve love. So I guess I'm going to spend some more time thinking about why this one just felt more repellent than romantic to me. They're super complex and interesting characters, but it was a difficult romance for me.

Review by Amber for Love Romance Books Blog

Brendan was at the top of his game as the top goalkeeper for the Atlanta Skyline soccer team. He was ready to finish out his contract on a high note and retire to the quiet of his small Midwestern hometown. Then he gets busted for gambling. He pays his dues by sitting on the bench, and attends Gamblers Anonymous meetings as required by his disciplinary agreement.


Erin has had a crush on Brendan since college....and then there was that scorching one night fling in Las Vegas after reconnecting at a friend’s wedding. Erin can’t forget that night, but when she is told to target him for a gambling investigation, she doesn’t know how to handle it. The more she is around him, the more she remembers the boy she had a crush on...and sees the man he grew into.


I would give this book 3.5 stars. It is different from the other Skyline books, but still a good story. It definitely stands well on its own. You don’t need to read the other books in the series to understand it. Both of these characters have baggage, but they work together to get through their issues. I was asked by the author for an honest review.

I was sent this book through Netgalley. My ratings and reviews will be my own personal opinions and are in no way influenced by publishers or authors who may have sent me books to review.

As soon as I saw this was a sports romance, I knew I wanted to read it. Once I found it was based around a soccer player and it made it to the top of my list. I absolutely love soccer and soccer guys!

This was my first book by this author, and I am ready for more. I am buying book one in the series now since I loved this one so much!

This started off with the characters in a meeting for a gambling addiction. I loved how different this was than other books I have read. This is not a typical plot line that you see which was refreshing.

Overall, I loved this and devoured it in one sitting. I actually took my Kindle to work so I could read on my breaks and lunch. I just did not want to put it down.

I liked the chemistry between Erin and Brendan:
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Is it always this hard to say no to you?”
“Most people quit trying pretty early on.”
“I can see why.”
“Don’t feel bad. You may become the only man to see my boobs and subsequently turn me down.”
Sometimes it's just easier for Brendan to give in to his woman, “whatever you say,” he replied smoothly, then put his finger under her chin and brought their lips together." I liked this book, Erin was good for Brendan.

Another amazing, gripping story set in the American soccer world. I love this series – Atlanta Skyline – by Rebecca Crowley, and each book brings to life interesting plots and round characters, full of inconsistencies and flaws.
Both Brendan and Erin make questionable choices and decisions, but I guess those morally dubious options and their collusion are what make them so human.
Brendan is a great character and I liked the background the author developed for his gambling addiction, I found it very convincing. His aloof, humble, quiet, almost shy, personality is endearing and provides a sharp contrast to the heroine’s.
The fall from grace atmosphere and the nostalgia surrounding Brendan’s career end is moving.
Erin is a strong heroine, a woman in a man’s world, who has to work twice as hard as her male peers.
Perhaps the characters’ issues were solved too easily but, all in all, I found this a realistic depiction of the soccer world and a very pleasurable reading.

This story is slow to develop and very predictable. Four chapters in and I was ready to put this book down. The cover and blurb are way hotter and better than the actual book. It's boring conversation and back and forth about the ethics committee, it is so hard to make any connection to these characters to become invested in them at all. Sorry, it just needs some more drama, pizazz.