Alxa15

When a simple mix-up leaves their father Joe’s estate to Eden, their long-absent mother, Clare and Aaron decide it’s finally time to track Eden down. But it’s been over thirty years since she left their remote outback mining town, and they’ve never heard from her again. Aaron is dealing with a new marriage that’s currently trapped in immigration limbo, and his teenage daughter Cady is clearly going through a personal crisis of her own.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a horrific accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from that shed.

As the daughter of a successful Major League pitcher, Charlie Hastings has baseball in her blood. Unfortunately, being the only girl on her high school baseball team, Charlie has always been just one of the guys. When her best friend, and secret love of her life, asks another girl to the prom, Charlie is devastated. She’s tired of being overlooked by boys because she’s not like other girls. Suffering a massive identity crisis, she decides to hang up her cleats. But with only two weeks until the state championships, the Roosevelt High Ravens can’t afford to lose their star catcher.

They say your first kiss should be earned. Mine was stolen by a devil in a masquerade mask under the black Chicago sky. They say the vows you take on your wedding day are sacred. Mine were broken before we left church. They say your heart only beats for one man. Mine split and bled for two rivals who fought for it until the bitter end. I was promised to Angelo Bandini, the heir to one of the most powerful families in the Chicago Outfit. Then taken by Senator Wolfe Keaton, who held my father’s sins over his head to force me into marriage.

Fastballs. Fast cars. Fast women. They are how I've learned to cope. But then life throws me a curveball. I may never play the game I love again. Then I meet her. She represents everything I've lost - in the best and worst of ways. She may be the only one who can get me back in the game. And I'm not just talking about baseball.

There are no douchebags in this story. Well, there are, but they're not who this story is about. This story is about me - the coach's daughter. When I moved to Iowa to live with my dad, the university's take-no-prisoners wrestling coach, I thought transferring would be easy as pie - living with my father would be temporary, and he'd make sure his douchebag wrestlers left me alone. Wrong on both counts.

Zeke Daniels isn't just a douchebag; he's an asshole. A total and complete jerk, Zeke keeps people at a distance. He has no interest in relationships - most assholes don't. Dating? Being part of a couple? Nope. Not for him. He's never given any thought to what he wants in a girlfriend, because he's never had any intention of having one. Shit, he barely has a relationship with his family, and they're related; his own friends don't even like him. So why does he keep thinking about Violet DeLuca? Sweet, quiet Violet - his opposite in every sense of the word.