Listen, Pitch (There’s No Crying in Baseball Book 3)

Baseball badboy Rhys Rivera has a dark past he’s worked hard to leave behind, but can’t completely escape. He tries to play things as safe as possible, but is always waiting for the past to catch up to him and ultimately take him out. So, he plays it as safe as possible. But, his sexy neighbor has him completely intrigued . . . and no matter how hard he tries to stay away, it’s a losing battle.

Henley can’t figure out why Rhys could possibly be interested in her . . .but she is falling, and falling fast for all of his charms. The more she learns about his past, the more she jumps all in with Rhys, willing to give him everything, including herself.

But when the past comes at Rhys and Henley with a vengeance, it will take all of Rhys’ strength and cunning to keep Henley and his chance at a future safe.

I’ve come to expect the unexpected from Lani Lynn Vale, but Listen Pitch completely knocked my socks off!!!!! This storyline was so unexpected in so many ways that I was enthralled and read the entire book in one sitting.

While he’s famous for baseball, Rhys has one heck of a backstory, and with every detail we learn, his strength of character shines. He is completely his own man and will not be ruled by his past, which made me admire his character so much.

Henley simply rocks. While she may not love her job, she knows exactly who she is, doesn’t make excuses, lives life on her own terms and does what makes her happy. I loved that while she quit nursing school thanks to the sight of blood making her sick, she volunteers three days a week at the hospital. She never once lets the fact that she is deaf hold her back in any way, which is inspirational.

Listen Pitch is very fast paced with unexpected twists and turns throughout. The suspense is simply thrilling and the characters and their non-traditional path to romance was pure enjoyment to read. 5 stars!

3.5 Stars

I haven’t read many books where one of the lead characters have a disability. In this one, Henley, our female lead, has hearing problems. I really liked how the author portrait her. She’s no damsel in distress and her disability doesn’t define her! She’s strong and brave and actually embrace her disability as a unique part of her!
Rhys, our male lead, was dealt a shitty hand in the family department. His mother is a porn star, only concerned for herself and his uncle is out to control him. The blurb hints a mafia connection in Rhys’s family but I didn’t quite see it in the book; I wanted more of it.
The plot pace at the first half was okay but in the second half it felt rushed. The most of the events happening were just mentioned; I wanted to found out more!

This story reminded me more of the 2nd book in the series than the first one. It is another favorite of mine, though. I like that even though it was a baseball story, we also got a little bit more than just the sports romance, there was some mafia storyline thrown in as well. I’m not really a mafia romance reader, but this one didn’t go so far into that as to make it completely that type of story. There was lots of drama and romance and steaminess. But I also loved the funny moments. Like when Rhys and Henley are at Rhys’s sister’s hospital room when she’s giving birth. That was hilarious! Not to mention finding out about the surrogates, and then the actual pregnancy and what Henley shouted at Rhys for that one. At first I tried to place everyone from the other stories, because I do remember, kind of, the accident that Rhys was in. Soon enough, though, we got into where we had Furious George and also Wrigley, characters I loved in the earlier books. I loved the detail of Henley being deaf, and how perfect and seamless it fit into the story. I loved that Henley had her little 90s Porn fascination. Although it seems as if maybe that would have come out later in the story for her and Rhys to enjoy or laugh about.

I read a little excerpt at the end that is about a guy named Tyler, and he is a cop, so I kind of wonder if he is Henley’s brother Tyler that we meet in this book? I hope so, because the excerpt from that one sounds like one that is good. I’ve already marked it on Goodreads. Definitely give this series a try!

Lani has another grand slam with this book!

After reading Tyler’s book, Too Bad So Sad, I couldn’t wait to read Rhys and Henley’s story.

Now this does take place before Tyler’s book though.

You can read as a stand alone, so don’t worry if you’ve missed a couple previous books. Or if this is your first Lani Lynn Vale book, you’ll be okay. If this is your first time, you’ll want to go back and read all of her other books because you’ll love this one!

Free does get mentioned, and plays a part in this story, and they do have a series also.

Rhys isn’t what he seems. There is so much more to him. I wasn’t expecting everything we learned about his family!

Henley is freaking awesome. She’s such a selfless person. You will see this about her with what she does after she gets off of work, and how she is with Rhys.

You can’t go wrong with this book. I loved it! You’ll get laughes, steam and suspense.

“I pretend that coffee helps, but really, I’m just a bitch.” -Coffee Cup
“You cannot make everyone happy. You are not a taco.” – Words of Wisdom

Listen, Pitch is quite the intriguing title for Henley and Rhys’ story because it becomes more than apparent that both of them have a few people in mind who they’d like to tell off, and in some ways, that’s exactly what they do the further into the story readers go, which is where things go a little off-kilter and a lot out of control.

Henley Cree is quite a fiery yet positive thinking woman – one who always puts others ahead of herself and one who has distorted self perception that Rhys is more than happy to correct for her because as much as Henley sees herself as defective is as much as Rhys sees her as being everything he’s ever wanted but never knew he needed. I love how Henley owns her quirkiness, embracing her eccentricities, even though, sometimes, it’s extremely difficult for her to do so.

Rhys’ nickname as the ‘bad boy of baseball’ seemed ill-fitting due to the where and when readers are introduced to him, and while there’s mention of his past activities in Chicago, he left that life over 8 years ago, and he has no desire to ever return to it, so I felt like I didn’t really get a full picture of why Rhys received that moniker; I needed a little more background into who Rhys was before the accident and before a certain beautiful neighbor got in his face about the noise and then was found at his bedside when Rhys finally came back to the land of the living.

Rhys’ uncle is the perfect antagonist because his actions and the lengths that he’s willing to go to are so over the top and somewhat unexpected. Rhys’ uncle is a cruel and vindictive man who lives his life according to his own rules, to hell with anyone or anything else. The things that he did to Rhys’ dad and continues to do to Rhys and Rhys’ sister, in order to keep them in line, absolutely paints this man as the menacing bastard he is. So it makes complete sense to me why Rhys goes the route he does and doesn’t allow his uncle to steam roll him. Is this decision more dangerous, absolutely! Readers see that firsthand, but part of Rhys’ transformation, if you will, needs to come from his own personal revelations and his uncle is responsible, along with his parents, for Rhys’ warped sense of love and relationships, so before he can move forward with Henley, in all the ways that deep down he wants and needs to, Rhys must deal with his uncle’s threats as well as the series of actions that his father laid out for him to claim his dirty mafia money – money that Rhys doesn’t need but he sure as hell isn’t willing to let his uncle take it off his hands.

I really liked how Lani Lynn Vale explained why Rhys has been somewhat safe from his uncle’s maniacal plans. The idea that Rhys’ stardom continues to save his life makes sense; Rhys is a high profile professional athlete, so he’s in the spotlight, not only for his baseball skills but also due to his physique and his personality. If anything happened to him, it would be well publicized, meaning the person or people behind it would be easily apprehended, so his uncle needs to find less pronounced ways of trying to kill him.

But Henley entering Rhys’ life changes everything and sets things in motion at warped speed which means that his uncle is almost out of time and options, but as readers will see, that fact doesn’t stop Rhys’ uncle, it only makes him desperate, which doesn’t bode well for anyone involved because a desperate man is one willing to do anything to get what he wants regardless of who’s affected by those plans.

Rhys and Henley’s story is one crazy, jacked up, but beautiful ride. I never doubted that Rhys loved Henley, even when he thought he was incapable of doing so because a man doesn’t meet someone like her, feel an instant connection, and then find out that she spent all that time at his bedside keeping vigil even though she barely knew him and let her go…and yea, his life is dangerous, but it’s clear that he’ll protect Henley with everything he is because that’s what a guy does for the woman who is his entire world, which is exactly what Henley becomes.

I’ve been in so many of Lani Lynn Vale’s worlds that I can’t quite decide which one is my favorite, but what I do know is that every single one of them has entertaining stories and dynamic characters, so there’s not one of them that I mind returning to time and time again.

4 Poison Apples

I have loved all of the books in this series so far, but this one is now my favorite. It has all the things I have come to expect and love from Vale, characters I can’t help but love, witty banter, and a whole lot of heat. But with Listen, Pitch she added and element of danger and angst that I did not see coming. Vale had me on the edge of my seat, turning the pages as fast as I could devour them.
I absolutely loved Henley and Rhys’ story. I read it one sitting and was sad to see that it was over. This one can be read as a stand alone but I do suggest you pick up not only this one but the other books in this series. You won’t be sorry!

This was really good. Henley, a deaf girl (she has a cochlear implant) who sees herself as defective, lives next door to Rhys Rivera, one of the team members of the Longview Lumberjacks baseball team. When Henley, who is looking after her sick toddler niece for the night, hears a party start up next door, she pops round to ask them to turn down the music. However, she ends up getting knocked on her tushy, her implant receiver getting broken in the process, and so begins a mutual obsession that will very soon change Henley and Rhys’ lives forever.

I’m not saying anything else about the plot because I don’t know how to word it without spoilers. I will say there is plenty or drama, action, humour and romance as you would expect from a Lani Lynn Vale book and I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next one now and I give Listen Pitch 5 stars.

NOW LISTEN PITCH WAS A HECK OF A CAPTIVATING AND WHOLLY ENTERTAINING SPORTS ROMANCE WITH ONE SUPER DUPER SEXY BASEBALL PLAYER AND A SMART AND SWEET POSTAL WORKER!

I DE-FREAKING-VOURED this book! It gave me delicious chills, made me tear up, sigh, smile, laugh and root for both Rhys and Henley. It was such an exciting romance. I LOVED that Rhys was so strong and caring and understanding and Henley she was so smart, kind, beautiful and caring. The way she took care of Rhys made me smile and love her all the more. And how Rhys goes about showing her he thinks of her and cares for her too, made me me want to swoon! This story was so romantic and had a few twists and ended up being one of the most engaging sports romances I have read in what feels like forever!

Listen Pitch gets a CAPTIVATING AND OH SO ENTERTAINING FOUR AND A HALF SHOOTING STARS!

Listen Pitch was a great 5 star read and book 3 in the “There’s No Crying in Baseball” series.

We start out by meeting Henley, she ends up trying to confront her neighbor (Rhys) about the loud music coming from his apartment. When something of hers gets broken we discover something unique about Henley and leave it to Rhys to know exactly what the item is and gets it replaced within hours.

Rhys and Henley watch each other from a distance both too shy to confront the other. As if we couldn’t love Henley any more we find that she also volunteers to sit with patients at the hospital her sister works at. This is where fate brings her face-to-face with Rhys. Rhys was in a severe accident and things are not looking good for him. She sits vigilantly by his side, she knows he’s her neighbor but is shocked to find out who he really is.

Subjecting a woman to my world was a bad idea. Women tended to die. However, for some reason, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could protect this one.

Things take a twist and Henley ends up working for Rhys as his caretaker. All I can say from here is it gets so much better. We have lots of unexpected secrets, twists and turns. The connection between them is off the charts hot and when they finally connect, wow. All of the secondary characters were great. I really liked Rhy’s sister, the delivery scene had me LOL. If your looking for a great read with danger, sports, hot sex, great characters and so much more than 1-click and get started today on Listen, Pitch. It can be read as a stand alone but I suggest reading them all. Thank you once again Lani for another great read.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. Reviewed by MAustin from Alpha Book Club

I was pleasantly surprised by how fast this story engaged me. I like the character of Henley and her generous spirit. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like Rhys at all, but that quickly turned around. There’s a lot going on here. This world is dense and lively and full of characters and drama. Henley and Rhys have an extensive courting dance before they finally commit to moving beyond friendship – and even then the water is murky because on the surface it’s a means-to-an-end relationship, not a real one… until it is. There are a lot of themes at work here – baseball, mob ties, family. It was a good read, and I’ll be picking up more titles by this author for sure!