Review: Stealing Home by Becky Wallace

“Scarlett O’Hara was right about one thing: tomorrow is another day, but today is perfect.”
– Becky Wallace

Title: Stealing Home
Author: Becky Wallace
Release Date: July 9, 2019
Publisher: Page Street
Pages: 320

Fight for your dreams, even if it means breaking a few rules.

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Russell has life perfectly planned. If she keeps up her hard work, one day she’ll take over the family business: owning the Buckley Beavers, a minor league baseball team, and become one of the only female General Managers in the sport.

But when the newest member of the Beavers, child-phenom Sawyer Campbell, shows up, Ryan’s carefully laid plans are thrown a major curveball. Sawyer is far more charming than the arrogant jocks she usually manages, his ambition rivals her own workaholic nature—and he’s completely out of bounds. Fraternizing is against every rule in the Beaver’s handbook.

Then Ryan’s divorced parents butt heads over the future of the Beavers, and her mom plans to sell her shares to a business group known for relocating teams. If this happens, Ryan’s dreams of becoming GM disappear. In a bid to save her future, she partners with Sawyer to use his star power to draw in sponsors who will keep the team in Buckley. But the more time she spends with him, the more impossible it becomes to play by the Beaver’s rules, and she can’t afford a strikeout on the path to her dreams.

Full count with two outs, Ryan’s one pitch away from losing the whole ball game.

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Stealing Home covered all the bases of a great sports related romance. We had witty and snappy dialogue, a swoon-worthy romantic interest and the forbidden factor that I always love. It encompassed everything I loved in YA contemporary romances and is the perfect summer read.

➽ Ryan – Ever wonder what it’s like to run a baseball team? Her family owns the local Buckley Beavers baseball team and does everything from picking up drunk players at the airport on their first day to getting player stats together for their baseball cards and running the in-between innings side shows. Ryan loves the Beavers and her dream is to one day take over as owner and manager of the team which leaves no time for romance, especially with any of the players. Fraternization is strictly prohibited but ever since Sawyer showed up that rule seemed harder and harder to follow. To top it off her mom has decided to sell her half of the team which those a wrench in Ryan’s future plans. Now she has to find a way to find the funding and convince her mom not sell.

➽ Sawyer – The number one recruit of the season and with a lot to prove he doesn’t have time for anything but baseball, especially with his family depending on his income. An injury after his first game though leaves him stranded off the field and with quite a bit of time spent with Ryan. While they didn’t get off on the right foot to start sparks seem to fly right away even though there is a no fraternization rule in place. Together they team up to find a way to get funding and stop her mom from selling half the team.

So. Much. Romance. And. Cuteness. Sawyer was so sweet and cute, a real southern gentleman and not the typical baseball jerk. He’s young with a ton of potential being the number one recruit. It was easy to see how Ryan with her tough girl and all business exterior would fall for him. It was a bit of a slow-burn romance because of the no fraternization policy, but you could tell they both cared for each other and that rule was why they were holding back.

It was also really cool to be behind the scenes and see just how a baseball team is run. Wallace’s family actually owned a team similar to Ryan’s and she spent all of her summers helping to run it. A lot goes into it that you never think about and it truly takes a lot of people to make it work and work smoothly. Unlike typical baseball romance stories you don’t actually need to know baseball to like this one. The focus was more on the management of the team versus the actual game itself, knowing the fundamentals of baseball was unnecessary.

Stealing Home is the perfect summer romance read. I loved the chemistry, the friendships and the drive of both Ryan and Sawyer to accomplish their dreams while also supporting one another. There could have been a few more family moments, but I think that the time commitment to running a team and all the behind the scenes work was probably extremely accurate and didn’t leave much time for family time. This was a sweet an satisfyingly quick read that I highly recommend to YA Romance lovers.