All Lined Up by Cora Carmack

All Lined UpRusk University, 1Cora CarmackNA Contemporary RomanceWilliam Morrow PaperbacksMay 13, 2014Paperback305

In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.

Dallas Cole loathes football. That’s what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past.

But life doesn’t always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again.

Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It’s obliterated.

Dallas doesn’t know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn’t know that Dallas is his new coach’s daughter.

And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.

Cora Carmack’s All Lined Up is the beginning of the Rusk University novels and the first book outside the Losing It series.

Dallas Cole is sick of football. Carson McClain is aiming to be the starting quarterback of the Rusk University football team. When the two meet at a college party, neither thinks college will be a very enjoyable experience. Both battling self-esteem issues and external pressures to excel all while struggling to resist their shared attraction, Dallas and Carson make this story another success in the author’s well-established literary portfolio.

Written in dual first person point of view (Dallas and Carson’s), the reader is given the full-treatment by being privy to both sides of the complicated relationship. I’m always a fan of dual POV , particularly in romances. Ms. Carmack is known for this technique in all her previous novels except in Losing It. However, she made up for this omission by releasing bonus scenes in the male point of view after publication.

I’m not a football fan, but even though the story’s main conflict revolves around the sport, Carmack doesn’t let it take over the plot. Her complex, well-developed cast of characters kept me fully engaged in this novel.

Cora Carmack’s tagline is “New Adult Romance with a Side of Awkward Goodness,” which aptly describes her Losing It series and even her new Rusk University series (judging from this book). One of the things I love about her books is that the characters don’t have everything all worked out. And while they may think it’s a weakness, they also own their quirks, making the reading experience even more enjoyable .

I recommend this for fans of the New Adult genre, romance, football, and college drama.

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