Stealing His Heart (Shillings Agency #2) by Diane Alberts

Stealing His Heart (Shillings Agency #2)
by Diane Alberts
Publisher: Entangled: Brazen
Release Date: August 25th 2014

Rate: Average (3 stars)

Synopsis:

A sexy category romance from Entangled's Brazen imprint... 

If he’s not careful, she’ll steal his heart, too...

Tara Harris is a professional thief with a conscience. She makes her living retrieving priceless stolen items from sleazy rich jerks, and returning them to their rightful owners. Until a routine nighttime assignment when Tara suddenly finds herself pinned against the wall. And oh, does the hard male body pressed against her feel good. And damned familiar...

Busted.

Jake Forsythe was Tara's former burglary partner, until he left her naked in bed—unsatisfied—and disappeared from her life years ago. Now he's back, hotter and more naughtily delicious than ever. And he has a nice, blackmailing kind of proposition—Tara can either help him with a secret project, or she can go to jail. But the moment Tara agrees to help Jake, she realizes she's just made a deal with a sexy-assed devil. Because this time, she stands to lose something more precious than any rare objets d'art...

I am happy to tell you all that Diane Alberts is back with her Shillings Agency and it's oozing hotness. This time is all about second chances, and Tara and Jake have their own love story to tell full of hot and sexy moments. 

Jake Forsythe works for the Shillings Agency and recently someone has break into one of their safeties. That's when Tara and Jake's paths cross once again. This time Jake has changed after coming for war. According to Tara he has lost his spark and his smile, all the time being the serious, responsible guy that never loses control. They both have changed so much that Jake blackmails Tara to help him solve how she broke into the Shillings Agency system. That or end up in jail.

This means that they have to spent a few days together, trying to work together and "help Tara remember" how she did it. But there's an unfinished story between them that with the years has grown to so much that the former ex-thief is willing to lose control.

I have to admit that the beginning of the story, to me, felt a little bit rushed. It starts with Tara breaking into a house and Jake catching her. And sparks fly right away. But since they shared a painful story, I might have wanted some restrain at least from Tara. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the story, specially that Tara and Jake shared a story that could lead to a potentially second chance when they cross paths again. And the fact that they both have changed, but Jake even more, leading them to be almost opposites, is what charges the story with vitality and creates some funny moments worth reading. 

For fans of Diane Alberts there's no need how the heat rises whenever she writes a romance story, but Tara and Jake's chemistry leads to some sexy and hot scenes that all readers should be able to read. I liked how the author used the chemistry and the story of the two main characters and lead them to what potentially could have been all those years ago.

With an appropriate ending, although a little bit painful, Diane Alberts has simply done it again and I highly recommend this new Shillings Agency to all romance readers out there. 

Read my review for Temporarily Yours

Jen McLaughlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes steamy New Adult books for the young and young at heart. Her first release, Out of Line, came out September 2013. She also writes bestselling Contemporary Romance under the pen name Diane Alberts.Since receiving her first contract offer under the pen name Diane Alberts, she has yet to stop writing. She is represented by Louise Fury at The Bent Agency.

Though she lives in the mountains, she really wishes she was surrounded by a hot, sunny beach with crystal clear water. She lives in Northeast Pennsylvania with her four kids, a husband, a schnauzer mutt, a cat, and a Senegal parrot. In the rare moments when she’s not writing, she can usually be found hunched over one knitting project or another. Her goal is to write so many well-crafted romance books that even a non-romance reader will know her name.

The Unofficial Book Blitz: Stealing Third by Marta Brown

Stealing Third
by Marta Brown
Publisher: VP Publishing House
Release Date: July 2014

Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

For Emily, going to camp, the summer before college starts, means leaving her feuding parents alone for the next eight weeks, and coming back to divorce papers is a risk she can’t take.

But no matter how many meddling phone calls, questionable hair decisions, and possibly illegal hookups she plans, her parents still march her off to Camp Champ totally against her will.

No matter. A few broken rules, and Em will be home free. That is, until she learns Tyler Ford, her baseball coach father’s star player and her drunken party hookup, is at camp, too.

For Tyler, summer is the onramp to the biggest decision of his life: med school or major leagues. Mega hot, possibly underage Emily? A complication he does not need.

But as the summer heats up with strikeouts and stolen bases will Tyler and Emily hit a home run and get what they’re after? Or will they both be thrown a curveball…in the game of love?

STEALING THIRD

by Marta Brown

Emily

“Emily, there you are,” Jenny says, walking into the cabin, the screen door banging closed behind her. I fold the letter to Kat and slip it back in the box before shoving it under my bed again. “What are you up to?” 

“Just got back from the batting cages. You?”

Jenny smiles. “I went up to the baseball field with some of the girls after getting done with crew.”

“Watching the boys?” I ask, despite already knowing the answer. It’s her favorite daily activity. 

“Just one in particular,” she squeals, causing me to wince as she bounces across the room, still in her spandex from practice, and sits down at the end of my bed. 

I push further back against my pillows to put some distance between us and roll my eyes. This isn’t a hard one to guess either. If ogling Todd were a sport, she could have earned a first place ribbon last summer.

“Let me guess, you were checking out T—”

“Tyler,” she finishes, cutting me off. 

My breath catches. My Tyler? 

She must read confusion on my face because she clarifies. “You know, the counselor from cabin four—the one with the crazy kissable lips.” 

Yep. That’s the one.

A nerve in my neck pinches. “Yeah…I know exactly who you mean.” Considering his crazy kissable lips is all I’ve thought about for days.

“Anyway, I came to grab a blanket and some sunscreen and I’m headed back up to the field. Some of the guys are about to have a pickup game.” Jenny pushes off my bed, grabs her beach bag and starts to head out the back door before stopping and tossing me a look over her shoulder. “Btw—you can come if you want.”

A pickup game? With Tyler? 

I smile, knowing the invitation is superficial, but I could care less. 

I hop off my bed, throw on my tennis shoes and grab a hair tie. I’ve avoided him for long enough. If it’s games Tyler wants to play, at least this one I know the rules to.

“Oh, great,” she deadpans. “You’re coming.”

I sweep my hair into a ponytail and grab my lucky baseball hat. 

“Nope. I’m playing.”

Tyler

The baseball field is dusty and hot, and it’s exactly where I want to be. 

Between job shadowing Doc, thinking about Emily in that teeny tiny bikini—which I completely shouldn’t be—and the pressure of choosing between medicine and baseball bearing down on me like the mid-afternoon sun, I’d almost forgotten how excited I was to spend the summer at a camp dedicated to sports.

“All right, guys, I know it’s just a pickup game, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to play like it’s the bottom of the ninth in the seventh game of the World Series.” Mark, one of the other counselors who plays ball claps his hands. The whistle hanging around his neck and the clipboard tucked under his arm reminds me of Coach. “Am I right?”

“Right,” the team echoes in unison before scattering to our various positions.

Grabbing the rim of my baseball hat and tugging it down low to block the sun from my eyes, I pump my fist into the hollow cup of my well worn glove and settle in at shortstop.

“Let’s do this,” I call, and then proceed to choke on the cheek full of sunflower seeds in my mouth at the sight of Emily walking out of the other team’s dugout—in something way hotter than a tiny bikini. 

A baseball jersey. 

Shooting me a wink, she bends down, grabs a helmet, and slips it on before approaching homeplate. She kicks in her toes, drawing up dust as she grips the bat and readies herself for the pitch. 

Damn, she looks hot. And by the slack jawed faces of my teammates, and frankly, her team, too, I’m not alone in my thinking. Maybe that’s why Mark gives her a nice easy pitch right down the middle. 

She hits a hard and fast line drive right between me and the second baseman, and before I can even scramble for the ball, she’s on first and smiling at me.

I shake my head. Of course she plays baseball—why wouldn’t she? She is the coach’s daughter after all. 

But staring at Emily standing on first base, tying her jersey into a high knot and revealing her toned stomach, I’m starting to get the feeling she’s playing with a whole different set of rules. Ones I’m pretty sure her dad didn’t teach her. 

Marta Brown grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was a teenager when Doc Martens, Pearl Jam and flannel were the norm and Dylan loved Kelly forever. (Beverly Hills 90210 shout out) 

She still lives just outside Seattle, now with her husband and cat, and loves the rain.

When she’s not writing about cute boys, first kisses and the magic and wonder of being seventeen, she’s watching The CW. And she sleeps in. Late.

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