Any Man of Mine is the sixth book in Rachel Gibson’s contemporary romance series about a fictional pro hockey team, the Seattle Chinooks. I received my copy free from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for writing a review. I’ve never read Gibson, and in fact, only requested this book from Net Galley to see if I would get it, Gibson being a NY Times best selling author published on a major press (this was during the discussion we having about Net Galley getting stricter). I’m not sure why I hadn’t read Gibson before. Perhaps the covers looked too chick lit. At any rate, requesting AMOM turned me on to a new author I really enjoy. I’ve already read book 2 of the series (See Jane Score), and plan to read the rest, probably in rapid succession.

Gibson writes in the tradition of Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ Chicago Stars series*: rich, charming pro athletes, happily single and enjoying the perks of stardom, who strongly prefer sleeping with long-legged, large breasted and empty headed women who agree to their terms (“no strings”).  The heroine suddenly appears on the scene, almost always a fish out of water in the sports world, and although she is all wrong — usually short and homey looking, sensible, borderline bitchy — he finds himself unable to stop thinking about her. He doesn’t want commitment — usually it’s because he is too focused on his career, but sometimes the heroine digs deeper and finds family of origin issues — but he can’t stay away, despite knowing this is not the kind of woman he can just sleep with and abandon. The sexual tension is very high as they fight their attraction, albeit for different reasons — she because she doesn’t want to get hurt, he because he doesn’t want to hurt her. Sometimes the heroine’s job — perhaps reporter or PR person — is threatened by all these romantic hijinks, but such concerns usually have all the weight of a down feather. Usually the character arcs in these books are strongly skewed to the heroes, but occasionally the heroine will have to change a bit too, maybe by giving up preconceived ideas about “dumb jocks”, or recognizing that she herself has made choices that have kept her single. (*although I think SEP’s books are more complex, and address more wide ranging themes.)

I absolutely love this kind of story, despite all of the problems in inherent in it from a political perspective, and AMOM was no exception. Folks have been talking lately about sexual fantasy in romance, and defending the right of readers to enjoy books with things like rape fantasy in them. Well, I look at this kind of book in a similar way: I would never, in real life, be attracted to a man like one of these guys, and I don’t, IRL, condone what he does, but as a fictional character, it’s a different — er — story.  AMOM is the kind of book I whip through, completely enjoying it, only later thinking about the problems.

There are two things about AMOM that complicate the trajectory I described above: (1) the hero and heroine were married, and (2) they have a 5 year old child, Connor. Here’s the misleading blurb:

Autumn Haven’s Las Vegas “to-do” list said to catch a show and play the slots—not wake up married to a sexy jerk like Sam LeClaire. The first moment she saw him eyeing her like a luscious piece of the dessert buffet, her usually responsible self told her to run. And she did—right into the wildest fantasy weekend of her life. But Monday morning jolted her back to reality, and before she could say “pass the coffee,” Sam was gone.

Now a successful wedding planner, Autumn hasn’t clapped eyes on the heartbreaking hockey superstar for over two years . . . until she organizes his teammate’s “Special Day,” where Sam makes a big play to pick up where he left off! But she has vowed any man of hers plays for keeps. Is Sam the man for her or does she banish him to the sin bin forever?

If you missed “wedding” and “child” in that, don’t worry: it wasn’t there. And it’s those two things, especially the child, that have made so many readers absolutely detest Sam and dislike this book. Sam is, on the scale of cretin to human being, much closer to cretin. His attitude towards women sucks (he’s a terrified his son will show feminine qualities, for example. Quelle horreur!), he drives a big gas guzzling truck — and leaves it running when parked — just to prove his manhood, and on and on and on. Gibson definitely put the pedal to the machismo metal on this character, but I personally find Sam very much in the mold of a certain kind of romance hero whom I encounter often. The focus on career, the no strings attached sex, the partying, the dislike of smart capable women like the heroine, the demeaning of the heroine’s career — this is so par for the course, I’m amazed anybody mentions it. I just read See Jane Score, and Luc, the hero of that book, has all of the same attitudes and beliefs that Sam has, albeit with a little less of Sam’s special misogynistic flair.

What makes Sam a tougher hero to redeem in the end is not those things, but that they are combined with the fact that he married Autumn in Vegas, abandoned her, and has proved to be — in Autumn’s eyes at least –  a terrible father for five years. As you might guess, this is a bit of a downbeat book, although Gibson takes us in flashbacks to Vegas, and I thought she did a great job showing the excitement of their whirlwind romance. Whether AMOM works for you will depend on how well you think Gibson portrays Sam’s change from absentee dad to devoted family man. Many readers complained that it was too abrupt, but I found it believable enough. I was also perhaps a but more sympathetic to Sam in a number of ways. It was Sam’s bad luck to have unprotected sex with a romance heroine who, unlike most real women in of our day and age, has never heard of the word abortion despite not being religious, being broke, single, and trying to start a business. I don’t blame Sam for divorcing her — it was a booze fueled 72 hours — or for asking her for a paternity test, although doing so via lawyers was very low.

He’s given more than adequate financial support to his child (it’s not his fault if Autumn is a cheapskate and prefers to live in a run down split level when she can afford much more), and when it comes to parenting, he’s done what he could, given his utter lack of maturity. Sam adamantly denies that he has been such an awful parent to Connor, and their disagreement over this issue is not just about the facts (how many times he showed up, for example), but about differing conceptions of what “being a good parent” means, conceptions that differ, I think in part, due to socialized gender differences. I found Sam’s attitude towards parenting a kid he didn’t want with a woman he doesn’t know or like pretty realistic, actually, and here’s where the constraints of the genre butt up against real life. The genre requires us to root for Sam, to like him and to want him to be happy. But most men in Sam’s situation would do just as Sam did. Probably less.

I also think it helped that Autumn is no great prize herself. She has a bit of a martyr complex, and her romantic life has essentially been on hold since she gave birth. Autumn, an attractive, young, successful woman (and let’s pause for a minute to consider the 100% success rate of heroines in small business! Even in a recession!), could have put herself out there and found a wonderful father for Connor if she had set that as a goal. So there is a bit of a tension in Autumn’s claim that she is over Sam and her actual behavior. Either she was spinning her wheels waiting for Sam to grow up, or she wasn’t, but the book kind of wants it both ways.

Add my susceptibility to dumb macho jock romance to my love for the second chance romance, and I couldn’t help but enjoy this one. Add one of my favorite mini-tropes: the hero shows up, uninvited, in the rain, because he cannot stay away, and I’m a goner.

There’s a line between “an immature man with old scars hiding from his love until he can handle it”, and “a tool who forgets her to have fun for 5 years, coming back when it’s convenient.” Where you think Sam falls will determine whether this book is an enjoyable read or a wallbanger.