Review: The Score (Charleston Condors #3) by Beth Bolden

Rating: 4.5 🌈

I may have become disillusioned with the RL game of football but not with Beth Bolden’s fantastic group of connected football series. They continue to keep me emotionally invested in each and every team and player.

The Charleston Condors are the third team and series represented in the group and The Score signals the penultimate storyline as this wonderful series comes to an end.

Carter Maxwell is a Condor that’s made indelible appearances in every book so far, usually because he’s happily hitting on the men in almost every scene he appears in. Not that anyone takes him seriously. Funny, handsome, a sexual hound, a “player” as they call it, and a star on the field. All very surface level things.

Now Bolden does her best job in bringing us a man in trouble. One filled with rage and long simmering resentment left by dysfunctional parenting that bordered on abuse, neglect, and internalized guilt that’s affecting his life on and off the field. Carter needs and finally asks for help.

And gets it. In several ways.

In an agent who works for him, one who hires a son and his mother to help Carter get his life together.

The son is Ian Parker. A well known LA sober coach whose goal is to become a professional agent like Alec, he’s hired by Alec to be a companion/coach for Carter. The whole steamy dynamic between Ian and Carter that began upon their initial encounter is fully realized. Bolden creates such heat between them immediately that you wonder how the rest of the story is going to unfold. Including the no sex part.

The other aspect I was unexpected and so well thought out was the therapist/therapy sessions with Carter and Moira, his therapist. Who is also Ian’s mother. Bolden’s work here is nuanced and thoughtful. Both on how these sessions provoke a discussion and how they affect the life of Carter because he’s open to the dialogue that’s happening.

And for all the situations that are also involved when two people are related and in the positions they have taken on in their respective lives. In other cases, this could have been a disaster. That was only marginally addressed.

Now to what Bolden’s spectacular at. That’s bringing the game of football alive on the page. Whether it’s team dynamics, inter team chemistry, game planning and then the all important explosive on the field action, it’s brilliantly described and vibrantly illustrated in the scenes. Those pigskins soar, every hit hurts.

Win or lose, this author carries us with her players and team with a passion.

And that’s why I’ll continue to read about football and her teams. Because she makes me continue to care.

A few quibbles. Ian’s career development wasn’t really explored towards the end. Did he really want the job? Was he a part of Alec’s team? Not sure what happened with that.

There’s a sense of HFN here as they are getting settled into their new roles as well as their relationship. And Carter’s ability to get a handle on his temper is new.

I’m looking forward to the finale story with Deacon and Mr C. And if there’s more football in Bolden’s future, writing wise.

I’m definitely recommending the Charleston Condors series as well as all of Bolden’s connected books. That includes The Score! It should be read in the order that the series is written for relationships and team development.

Charleston Condors:

✓ The Star #1

✓ The Game #2

✓ The Score #3

◦ The Play #4 – March 31, 2024

Bolden’s connected Football series in order they are written:

✓ The Riptide

✓ Miami Piranhas

✓ Charleston Condors

Buy Link:

The Score (Charleston Condors Book 3)

Blurb:

Carter Maxwell knows he’s a screwup. Four teams in three seasons tells the story, as much as he wishes it didn’t.

But finally, he’s landed in a good place, where he likes the team and the team actually likes him. Even the Condors’ current rebuilding mode suits him. There’s a new owner. New coach. New players. New rules.

But one rule hasn’t changed: don’t seduce your agent-appointed c*ckblocker.

Ian Parker agrees to live with Carter and keep him on the straight and narrow for one simple reason: Alec, the agent in charge of cleaning up Carter’s reputation, has promised him something Ian wants very, very badly.

Even more badly than Carter naked above him and below him and next to him.

A chance for Ian to become an agent.

But Ian didn’t take into account just how persuasive Carter is—or just how desperately he desires to be persuaded. Or how, while spending time with Carter, they’ll somehow stumble into a fake relationship that begins to feel all too real.

It doesn’t matter that Carter’s never fallen in love or that he’s never been in a real relationship. It doesn’t matter that Ian’s risking his future as an agent.

He’s determined to score the impossible and reform the bad boy—only after encouraging Carter to misbehave one last time. But this time, only with him.