The Trade by Meghan Quinn

Prepare yourself as I fill your screen with every cheesy Baseball related metaphor I can. 

Seriously Cory “Fucking” Potter! He is the all-star off all my dreams!
Cory is beyond Dreamy.  He is the quintessential nice guy.  He has an amazing heart and when he cares he care deeply.  He is also super respectful.   I could go on and on with what a nice guy Cory is.  But his nice guy persona could be to his detriment when it comes to love.  He is too passive, too much of a nice guy.  So many moments in this book I wanted to beam him with the ball or swing a bat at his head in hopes he would pay attention and stop being the nice guy. 

I did have some trouble with Natalie’s character.  And maybe this wouldn’t have been as much of a problem had I read Jason and Dottie’s story and had a few more glimpses of who Natalie is.  Natalie’s self-doubt and lack off confidence felt like it came out of left field (see what I did there).  I feel like we never got a whole picture of who she was before she connected with Cory.  I felt like she took defeat and gave up kind of easily.  

Overall, the story is good.  I did feel the story was a little muddled in the middle.  They danced around each other for a long while.  I desperately WANTED them together making it a frustrating.  Finally, they both came out swinging with all the hot stuff! The second half of the book is emotional, sexy, and totally worth it. 

There is a competition for which was the better love story, Cory and Natalie or the bromance between Cory and Jason.  I loved all the crazy side characters, but especially Jason and his ridiculous behavior.  He is just so funny and quirky, every scene he is in he steals the show. 

THe I read The Trade as a standalone, but rest easy my friends, because I will be going back and tagging all the bases and reading all the past books with these characters.  For me this was a solid 3.75 almost a 4 out of 5 stars.  I think the muddle in the middle and build up was a little more than I traditionally like.  But it was great fun read and good enough I will go back and read the rest of Ms. Quinn’s catalogue of books.