Title: The Captain and the Cricketer
Series: Captivating Captains: Book Two
Authors: Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Length: 235 Pages
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: This is a take your time, get a cup of tea sit down and read story. I have been impressed with how colorful and varied these first two books in the series have been, and I’m really looking forward to the next installment. Absolutely recommend.
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: When an uptight countryside vet and a sexy TV star meet on the cricket pitch, they’re both knocked for six!
Henry Fitzwalter is a solid sort of chap. A respectable rural vet and no stranger to tweed, he is the lonely inhabitant of crumbling Longley Parva Manor.
Captain George Standish-Brookes is everyone’s favorite shirtless TV historian. Heroic, handsome and well-traveled, he is coming home to the village where he grew up.
Henry and George’s teenage friendship was shattered by the theft of a cup, the prize in a hard-fought, very British game of cricket. When they resolve their differences thanks to an abandoned foal, it’s only a matter of time before idyllic Longley Parva witnesses one of its wildest romances, between a most unlikely couple of fellows.
Yet with a golf-loving American billionaire and a money-hungry banker threatening this terribly traditional little corner of Sussex, there’s more than love at stake. A comedy of cricket, coupling and criminality, with a splash of scandal!
Review: The Captain and the Cricketer is book two in the Captivating Captains series and truly hallmarks what this series will be about. This book could not be more different than book one in tone and feel and content. The writing style is pure Curzon and Harkstead, though, and that along with the very British feel of both novels tie them together nicely. Once again we are swept away to bonnie ol’ England, this time to a small village in Sussex named Longley Parva, only this time it is modern day. We don’t have an exact date in this novel, and there is a juxtaposition of old vs new, which to me was an indication of how the British, while forward thinking in most aspects, still cling to old traditions in the pockets of small villages which dot the countryside. This is brought home with the lovingly detailed life in the village and the emphasis on tradition and legacy vs new money and garish snobbery. Longley Parva is the stuff of postcards, a small village with thatched roof cottages, rose-covered arbors, green grass, horse paddocks, and a venerable Manor house which has had a Fitzwalter in residence for six-hundred years. Cricket is the thing here in Longley Parva, and old rivalries die hard and memories are long where grudges are concerned.
Henry Fitzwalter is at once an endearing and frustrating character. Henry feeeels the weight of his ancestors, having been taught by a disapproving father to always bear the weight of those who have gone before and don’t let down the family heritage. He is the epitome of propriety, taking life with a stiff upper lip and always suppressing how he really feels about quite a number of things. Life has left him a little bereft in the joy department. He has a good life, one he is quite proud of, being the veterinary for the surrounding countryside. He’s held in some esteem by the villagers he grew up with and, by all accounts, should be nice and comfortable with his lot in life, headed into his middle thirties. But Henry has a hole where his heart once was. He chased away the one thing that could make him truly happy because he was afraid and now he only has the portraits of his ancestors to keep him company.
But Henry had swum the lake as a boy, with his friend George. They’d dared each other, raced each other, dived and splashed and laughed until the sun had set. What had happened to that Henry Fitzwalter? Was he still in there somewhere under the tweeds and the corduroy and the sensible brogues?
The boy had fled.
Captain George Standish-Brookes is a hero, even if he never planned to be one. Life took him to war in Afghanistan and a random picture from a war journalist made him a household name. What’s a guy to do but run with it? With his gregarious personality he’s parlayed his one photo into movies, documentaries, a weekly TV show; he’s written a book and become a big star. Coming back to where he grew up is bittersweet for Captain George. The people all love him here, are proud of their hometown hero-cum-movie star—all except for the one person he wants approval from most of all, his childhood friend Fitz. It took me a minute to warm up to George. When he is first introduced, there is a touch of callousness about him in regard to the people around him, especially Henry, but I think the authors were using that as a way to let us know that George can be a little flawed. But oh, his heart is in the right place and by the end of the book, George was my favorite. At heart, he’s not a hero, just a guy who managed to be in the right place at the right time and then made something of it. He knows how to play up the part to achieve the results he wants from the people around him, but inside, George is a teenage boy in love with his best friend—a love he’s never forgotten or let die.
And in all those adventures, seeing the world and all its wonders, not a single day had passed in which he hadn’t thought of Henry.
This is a story about second chances, righting what is wrong, standing up for what and who you believe in. And cricket. Winding through the story is the meandering thread of cricket, the emotions and feel of the game and what can happen on the pitch when you least expect it. There are layers of stories here, with a mystery to solve and an evil bully to take down. The secondary characters play their parts well and support the main storyline nicely. I will say my favorite supporting character was a horse. There was a special horse in the first book of the series also… hmmm, I’m sensing a theme. Ha!
This is a slow-paced book; it unfolds, it doesn’t barrel to the finish line, so be aware. Just when you think it’s getting slow, the authors bring in another plot point and you’re pushed onward toward George and Henry’s HEA. This is a take your time, get a cup of tea sit down and read story; it is not an “I only have this weekend, so I’ll do this real fast” kind of story. I have been impressed with how colorful and varied these first two books in the series have been, and I think it bodes well for the series as a whole. These stories are about Captains, in all their forms, and I’m really looking forward to the next installment. Absolutely recommend.
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