Charlotte "Charlie" Gibb is a smart, driven football coach who beats out Connor McGuire for a job as head coach of the high school where he's been assistant coach for several years. Despite butting heads initially, they try their best to ignore their compatibility and growing attraction. Connor starts off as kind of a sexist jerk, angry that a woman got the job he thought was his. And although he redeems himself later, the first quarter (no pun intended) of the book is hard to read for that reason. Charlie makes a tough, likeable heroine, though, and that makes it worth sticking around for the satisfying ending.

Connor was sure he was going to be the new head football coach at the high school, but was sore when he discovered he had been overlooked and would be reporting to Charlie, the first female high school football coach. Funny, fast paced and romantic. Not to be missed.

Baltsar gives us Charlie and Connor's story in Sidelined. Pushed aside for the head football coaching position, Connor pushes all of Charlie's buttons. Charlie, of course, as a female has to do everything twice as well as a man in a man's world. Her trials and tribulations will sound eerily similar to any successful woman who reads this book. Aside from the inevitable issues you would expect a female in this position to face, this is a strong outing for Baltsar. Readers will appreciate the HEA and the character growth of both leads. The added bonus of Sidelined is the strong secondary cast. This book is worth a read.

Connor McGuire eats grilled chicken and vegetables on the same plate every night, he never redecorated after his fiance left him at their rehearsal dinner and he has waited not so patiently for the job of head football coach at the high school where he worked for years. When the previous coach finally retires he knows he's a shoe-in for the job but then they hire Charlie Gibb for the position instead. Even more shocking? Charlie is short for Charlotte, because the new head coach is a woman. What's not so shocking? Their chemistry is undeniable.

Sidelined is set in the same world as Suzanne Baltsar's book Trouble Brewing so the characters will be familiar to you. However, Sidelined is a vast improvement over Trouble Brewing filled with much more UST and verbal barbs.

I absolutely loved this book. It is full of incredibly strong, kind successful women who love and support each other. The male characters are just as engaging. I appreciated the straightforward, no nonsense dialogue, and realistic situations. Charlie is not the kind of woman to cajole or wheedle to get her way, and I loved her frank approach to her job and her life. I also loved her southern background meets Midwestern nice. That made for some fun moments in the story. Another positive to this story was that although the women were strong, the men were not made out to be the villains all the time. Charlie was capable of taking care of herself, and Connor was a kind, quick study as he learned to lover her well. All these elements plus football made this an ideal read! Kudos to Suzanne Balstar for delivering a smart, complex, and truly entertaining read.

A sweet and sporty romance. Charlotte is the first woman to coach a male high school football team and is determined to prove her value to the team. Connor can't help but feel she took his job away because of her famous father and because she's a woman. Sparks fly between the two. Can they make a relationship work?

I received this book in return for a fair and honest review.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be easy enough to read. I could understand Charlie's position to want more and to get it on her own steam. I liked how the author brought forth issues that plague women who try to succeed in male dominated sports. This could be easily related to other areas. Though I understood her struggles, there were times that Charlie seemed a little overkill. I was not thrilled about Connor at first. What a great first impression! I did like the layers that gave more understanding of who he was as the book progressed. I liked that despite his lack of outward show, he really did support the changes once he realized it was for the betterment of the team. Connor and Charlie were both out of practice and defensive when it came to relationships, so it came off as awkward. I found this okay, given their backgrounds. They could both be insensitive and abrasive. There were couple times that Charlie got angry and had expectations and I couldn't figure out what she was getting at. My favorite character was Sean. I appreciated a glimpse into a family that supported each other in all the right ways. There were several things to learn from this book and I quite enjoyed the road the author mapped out to get there.

There was language that I could have done without. The adult scenes did not dominate the story, but were present. I know this is an ARC copy, but there were several mistakes (grammar and incorrect words/spellings) that will hopefully be fixed before release date. I enjoyed the story and thought it was easily a 3.5-4 star read.

This author appears to be relatively new. It appears this is her 2nd book ever and I loved it so much I went out and bought the first book as well. It easily stands alone and was a very original plot in this romance.

The story stars Charlie/Charlotte a new head coach for a high school in a small town in the midwest. She gets the job above Connor, the Defensive Coach. So the story starts whith alot of love/hate. Eventually the two are very attracted and they begin a secret romance.

Meanwhile Charlie does a wonderful job and the players fall in love with her, except for a booster dad who decides to get rid of her. And that is when the trouble begins for Charlie and Connor. Will Charlie fight for her rights and will Connor be there to support her or betray her? Well you have to read to find out...

This was a wonderul story and I cannot wait to read more from the author.

For the Love of Football!!! Sidelined by Suzanne Baltsar was exactly the book I was hoping it would be. What an adorable story with great amazing characters. Great Romance and a MUST read.

Hacking it in a man’s world of competitive sports is tough, but as the head coach of a high-school football team with disgruntled men with the boys’ club mentality, Charlie Gibb starts off with everything against her.

I commiserated immediately. ‘Sidelined’ was a book I wanted to read because I needed to see a woman succeed in a position that typically garners misogynistic comments, barely-veiled sexual barbs and plain old discrimination because of her gender. To this extent, Suzanne Baltsar tells a pretty decent New Adult story of what it probably takes to make it—and stay standing—in an all boys’ club.

It was primarily characterisation of the unlikeable protagonists that I had a problem with—and a pairing that I simply couldn’t get behind. I found neither Connor Mcguire nor Charlie Gibb blameless in all their self-made conflicts, stubborn and defensive as they were of their own behaviour without wanting to give each other an inch for most of the book. The shift from enemies-to-lovers came too abruptly (I didn’t feel much chemistry there) and I just couldn’t quite get the frenzied push-pull that was somehow called heated foreplay when all I saw was hostile sniping and unkind insults.

To begin with, Charlie wasn’t easy to like, abrasive and pushy (and sometimes lacking total control of her emotions) as she was after her years of fighting male opposition and public scrutiny. In fact, she was one of the most callously insensitive ‘heroines’ I’ve ever come across; making light of Connor’s history in comparison to the way she’d tried to overcome her own insecurities and her constantly eagerness to push the blame onto Connor for their relationship problems made her bloody intolerable.

Yet frankly, I'm also well aware that she might be a protagonist I can see some readers liking for standing her ground as stubbornly as possible while shooting her mouth out at everything that her sensibilities are offended by.

On the other hand, throw in Connor’s emotional shutdowns, the constant blowing hot and cold? I was tired of them by the time I finished the book.

I wish I liked ‘Sidelined’ a lot better—I did come in expecting a rom-com-type story, but was left feeling by the end of it as though I was stuck with a pairing that would easily fall apart when the next big obstacle was thrown their way.