Blindsided by T.A. Chase & Devon Rhodes

Love can hit you hard before you even see it coming…

When rugby player Liam transfers to Melbourne, he’s blindsided by his attraction to the hottest lifeguard on the beach. Luckily Matty knows mouth-to-mouth…

Liam’s left his friends and family—everything comforting and familiar—back in Canberra. He knows it all comes with the job, adjusting to a new city and a new team, but he’s lonely. Maybe it’s time to find something outside his career to fulfill him.

Working as a lifeguard and being by the ocean is Matty’s dream come true. The big, blond, blue-eyed hottie new to his beach catches his attention right away. When he runs into Liam again at the pub, he takes the shy league player under his wing and into his group of mates, and they become fast friends.

But when they go from friends to lovers, the emotions that come with their deepening romance catch them both off guard. Can two men without any experience at relationships navigate their way to steady ground?

Second Edition
First Edition published by Totally Bound Publishing, December 2013.

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
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Dreamspinner Press

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Avid Reader – ☆☆☆☆
M/M Sports romance
Triggers: Homophobia

Liam is learning a new town. He has just been traded to a new rugby team and despite loving what he does, he misses his old town. He found a beach he likes to frequent and while there, catches the eye of lifeguard, Matty.

Matty has a great group of friends. They usually gather at the local watering hole at night to laugh and catch up. He sees Liam while working and surreptitiously watches him – Liam is one attractive guy.

Needless to say, the sports truly take a background to the romance that is budding between the characters. It is a slow burn romance and one that is well developed. I am truly hoping that Caro and Leon get their own story soon.


Sarah – ☆☆☆☆
3.5 stars

Australian rugby offers a much welcome twist to the sports romance genre and this story twists the conventional tropes a little bit further because most of the story happens during evenings, weekends, and the offseason.

I loved Liam from the first pages and his lonely life after a surprise transfer to a new city is humanising and makes him feel less like a celebrity and more like an ordinary guy. At the start, Matty is probably the more interesting character – but his tiresome work/pub/home becomes a little bit tedious.

While I liked the idea of focusing on Liam’s life off the pitch and Matty’s life beyond the beach, the reality is that work is the most interesting part of both men’s lives. Their pub and Netflix routines aren’t terribly exciting and the dramas between Matty’s pub mates didn’t really hold my attention. At times the book dragged, and it felt more like I was stalking a slightly boring colleague’s social media accounts than like I was reading a romance with professional sports action.

I like the low-key approach to sexuality in this book. The usual coming-out-in-the-spotlight angst is missing. Liam isn’t really closeted and isn’t really bothered. However, it takes Liam and Matty far too long to figure out the reciprocal attraction between them. There is slow burn romance and there’s ridiculous. This one falls closer to ridiculous.

T.A. CHASE lives in the Midwest with her neurotic but still wonderful senior cat. She believes there is beauty in every kind of love, so why not live a life without boundaries? Experiencing everything the world offers fascinates T.A., and writing about the things that make each of us unique is how she shares those insights. When not writing, she’s watching movies and reading. She’s also a part of a line-dancing group that takes over a bar on Tuesday nights and entertains at assisted living homes. It’s all about living life to the fullest.

She loves hearing from fans. But don’t be too upset if she doesn’t get back to you right away. Life has a way of making her lose track of days and hours. Don’t worry, though. You will hear back at some point.

Connect with T.A.

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DEVON RHODES is a happily caffeinated former sleepwalker who, over a decade ago, left the business world for the cushy life of motherhood. Two kids later, at around thirty-nine (and holding), she couldn’t take her ponytail and T-shirt life anymore. So she sat down at the laptop to try to do justice to the images burning in her head. A few months later, success! She fended off her identity crisis by morphing from stay-at-home mom into published erotic romance writer.

She lives in beautiful Oregon with her family, who are (mostly) understanding of all the time she spends on her laptop, aka the black hole. You can find her wherever her two girls are, and you’ll never see her in a scrunchie again. Devon loves to hear from readers.

Connect with Devon

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Blindsided (Men of Sports #1) by T.A. Chase & Devon Rhodes to read and review.