Just Not Mine: A Steamy Friends to Lovers Alpha Male New Zealand Rugby and Family Romance

Rosalind James

Nov 2014 · Rosalind James

About this ebook

Destiny can sneak up on you. Or it can smack you in the face.

New Zealand All Blacks rugby star Hugh Latimer is coping with a few problems just now. A broken hand, missing the European rugby tour…and a half-brother and sister who are playing havoc with his love life. Instead of packing down in the scrum, he’s driving the carpool to ballet—or forgetting it’s his turn. When he hears his neighbor wailing out bad pop in the wee hours, it’s the last straw.

Actress Josie Pae Ata is a fortunate woman. A new house, good friends, a gorgeous boyfriend—oh, and soap opera stardom, too. Getting involved with her new neighbors would bring risks she doesn’t need. But life has a way of changing the rules. And when you get more than you can handle, sometimes all you can do is hang on for the ride.

Go Down Under in more ways than one in this steamy, feel-good New Zealand sports romance. Fans of Jill Shalvis, Catherine Bybee, and Kristin Higgins will enjoy this book.

Ratings and reviews

Josie is a tad more glamorous than the down-to-earth but athletic girls of the other books. Josie's a seductive actress. Hugh has a novel complication in his younger siblings that he, just 27, has to raise on his own. I loved Josie's strength and vulnerability, and I loved how Hugh was this bedrock, even though he was confused. Amelia, his little sister, is incredibly sassy. Charlie is very sweet, and it's a sweet book. Favorites: 1. Josie: "Grieving isn't hanging on. It's letting yourself do what you need to do in order to move into the future. Letting yourself feel the pain and the loss so you can go on and live again. Because the loss and the pain are still there whether you acknowledge them or not, aren't they? If you bottle them so tightly that even you can never see them, that doesn't make them go away. It just means it'll never stop hurting, like a wound that's got infected." 2. "Big, tall, tough," Brenda said. "Hard man. Girls love that. All broody and intense, too, like you've got a secret vulnerable side that only they can see. Makes them want to cuddle you." "They want to cuddle me?" Hugh asked in outrage as the other two men burst out laughing.

About the author

Rosalind James, a publishing industry veteran and former marketing executive, is the author of eleven Contemporary Romance and Romantic Suspense novels, six of which have reached the Top 100 on Amazon. She and her husband live in Berkeley, California with a Labrador Retriever named Charlie (yes, she named a character after her dog, but she swears she didn't realize it until later) and three extremely spoiled, non-egg-laying bantam chickens. Rosalind attributes her surprising success to the fact that "lots of people would like to escape to New Zealand! I know I did!"