Let's be clear right now, I'm in the bag for baseball romances. I'm in the bag, in general, for sports romances, but baseball is my personal favorite sport and so those tick tons of boxes. Beyond the bodies of the athletes (because whoah, am I right?), I adore the idea of people who are super disciplined, super passionate and —let's be honest—super egotistical on some level finding the person who makes them the best versions of all of that. I read more of this subgenre than almost any other, and I adore it. I read Katie Rose's first Boys of Summer book a while ago and so I've been in the can for the Bad Boys of Baseball series in particular for a little bit. Just like the others, THE HEAT IS ON focuses on the New Jersey Sonics, a MLB team out of Trenton who are known as the class clowns of the league. They're good, but they're raw and goofy. Getting traded to the Sonics, in Rose's world, is the last step before retirement.

In our story, Connor Jackson was once a hot commodity on the baseball market. He grew up in New Jersey and has now come home for one last gasp at the World Series before he retires. He's charged with leadership in the locker room, which he is seriously averse to at the beginning. His highest priority is getting back the girl who got away, Tracy Coleman.

Tracy and Connor parted on good terms in college, but she's never stopped pining for him either. In the interim, however, she married a complete jerk and has some kiddos with him. She left the man but of course still has to deal with him and does so balancing her insane life as a single mama. She's closed herself off to all men, so Connor has his work cut out for him.

The baseball as a game isn't super present in THE HEAT IS ON, it's more team dynamics and such. But that's okay because there is a whole lot else going on with families and vulnerability and learning, for both of them, how to be family.

THE HEAT IS ON is recommended for folks who like sweet stories with kiddos, adults finding their (delayed) happily ever afters, and baseball fans alike.