BloggityBLOG: Review: Zack By Sawyer Bennett

Title: Zack

Author: Sawyer Bennett

Published Date: June 9th 2015

New York Times bestselling author Sawyer Bennett goes for a hat trick with the latest romance in a sexy series about cool-as-ice hockey players and the women heating up their lives.

Rising star Zack Grantham has been stuck in a downward spiral of grief ever since the car accident that left him a single dad and put his career on hold. Back on the road with the Carolina Cold Fury and still crippled by emotional baggage, he’s in need of some serious help with his son. But while the nerdy new nanny wins his son’s heart, Zack isn’t sure he’s ready for a woman’s touch—even after getting a glimpse of the killer curves she’s hiding under those baggy clothes.

Kate Francis usually keeps men like Zack at a distance. Though his athlete’s body is honed to perfection, he refuses to move on with his life—and besides, he’s her boss. Still, the sparks between them are undeniable, tempting Kate to turn their professional relationship into a personal one. But before she makes a power play for Zack’s wounded heart, Kate will have to open him up again and show him that love is worth the fight.

(Synopsis Provided By Goodreads)

Zack Grantham had what would be a perfect life. Gina the happy wife, Ben the light of Zack's life and his son, and a hockey career on the rise. That is until a car accident that leaves his life in shambles. Gina is gone - taken away by that car accident and Zack takes the responsibility of it. Plagued by the guilt of it, he tries to get by for the sake of his son but he knows that he's a shell of a man who once was. After going through recovery himself, he's finally fit to return to playing on the ice for his team but that leaves his son unwatched. The last thing he wants to do is to hire a nanny but it's the right thing to do. Enter Kate Francis. Poor girl from the other side of town. She's got her own tale of tragedy but she's stubborn enough to hide it all even if it hurts her. Kate needs a job if she wants to continue to go to school so she jumped at the opportunity to nanny. It isn't all rainbows when Zack and Kate finally meet. Quite the opposite actually. He's about ready to throw her out but she's willing to cling on to anything just to survive this job. Zack and Kate over the next days, weeks and months learn to deal with each other for the sake of Ben but the best part of everything is, Kate's the one to help Zack heal.

Told in alternating perspectives of Zack and Kate, Zack By Sawyer Bennett weaves a very well written story of fighting the demons of guilt and learning to forgive yourself. Along the way she also tells a remarkable story of finding love again. Sawyer Bennett creates characters with lots of depth to them. It's hard to find a boring part to this story. I was engaged with what was happening on pages the entire time I was reading!

As this story is a part of the Cold Fury Series that surrounds the men of the Cold Fury hockey team, of course there is mention of the past boys. It is cute how close knit they are - sense of brotherly love really lays a good foundation to these novels. Zack is recovering from the death of his high school love Gina in this book. She passes away in a car accident that Zack feels completely responsible for. His guilt is mainly centred on the fact that although they were together for all those years - shared a son together - he could never make things official and marry her. He never felt like it was right for them. I think this book does an amazing job explaining Zack's decisions on this as well as all the emotional guilt he goes through. We become very understanding of where he comes from and why he acts out the way he does throughout the book. The pace of the story was nice and slow so we got a good sense that it took TIME to heal from guilt.

Zack is a truly well developed character. There is a lot of survivors guilt/guilt in general that he carries on his shoulders and from that we get a male character that suffers. It was at times heartbreaking but ultimately made for AMAZING character development.

Kate Francis - the girl who does not know how to say NO. She has a heart of pure gold. She was sympathetic to Zack and Ben but not annoyingly so where her own life began to revolve around them. Instead, Kate as the nanny finds a perfect way to integrate all their lives together unconsciously. As the nerdy-but-not-really-cause-shes-actually-hot type of girl, she had a very spunky and quirky personality which was fun to read. Her transition from nanny to lover in this book was timed really nicely. It wasn't too soon so we never thought it wasn't right for her to get together with Zack. The nice and slow pace and progression of the story allowed for the love between Kate and Zack to come very naturally.

Ben, Zack's son with Gina, is a great character and device to connect all aspects of Zack's life together. Ben's character was a well written tool that did not seem contrived or purposefully created in order to move things along in the story. He was both a character on his own and a segway for Zack to meet Kate.

I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.