I did not like this book because I did not like the main characters. They felt very immature and like teenagers and I just did not like how they behaved in general.

Honestly I just couldn't get into it because of that and so had to Dnf it.

I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
A interesting idea but I did treally enjoy it as it was very rowing heavy.
An OK read.

I liked the book! I found a very attractive story, a good plot, but in my opinion it sinned in some things. But in general a good experience!

Rocking the Boat gives a look at a men’s college rowing team. I feel like I’ve read another book about college rowing, but it’s been years. It was definitely interesting to learn more about the endurance and precision that it takes to be a good rowing team. This book focuses on coach Nick Bedford and one of his rowers, Morgan Estrada. The age difference here isn’t that large, and they are both legal. The issue is that Nick is Morgan’s coach.

I will say that Nick made some dumb decisions throughout the book, and it took awhile before Nick and Morgan even decided to give it a chance and start dating. Together, they are a great pair, and I really did enjoy this one. I wish Nick had been a bit more communicative with Morgan though – sometimes he acted way more like the younger man in the relationship.

I have to say thati loved the first 25%of this book. It was fun and light and realistic and super entertaining but then... our MCs decided to start acting like teenagers and the book was ruined for me.
I hated when this happens, especially when I'm really enjoying the book because then I feel it starts dragging it and I start considering on dnfing it.
What stops me from doing that was Drew. I absolutely loved him. I really hope he gets a book (I think he is!) Because he was such an enjoyable character.
Overall though it was a somehow enjoyable book it could have been better.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

There's lots of eye candy in Rocking the Boat. Rowers by definition must be tall and muscular, and so it's not surprising that both the coach and the star rower in this book fit that bill. There's a lot of sizzling sexual tension, which is understandable because for the bulk of the book, the two protagonists are in an uncomfortable situation. The Me Too movement has brought us to the point where when there is an unequal power base in a relationship, it makes us uneasy.

Even if both parties are willing, there are still lots of barriers that both have to cross, and I think the author made a wrong decision in spending so much time while they are in this coach-student situation. The sexual tension would have been more palatable if the season was already over.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thanks Netgally.

Finally I finished this book it took me a while but I did it.

So in this story we meet Nick, the couch of a the rowing team in the college of California, and no one in his work knows he is gay which is OK, until  que meet Morgan, one of his students, and the chemistry between is inevitable, but the relationship between coach and athlete is forbidden.

So...if I'm honest I didn't like this book, it was at least for me, a little bit childish, specially the way the coach acted , sometimes he acted like a tenneger, and Morgan how is much younger that him was more responsable and mature.

Also I didn't feel any connections with the character, I felt very superficial.

Now couple, the way everything develops was really fast and I didn't think of them as real couple, everything felt very robotic and didn't cause any feeling besides boring.

I want to clarify that this is my opinion. And if I didn't like this book doesn't mean that you're not gonna liked too.

Maybe you'll love it.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for access to this title.

I gave this book a three stars.

I think it's a strong start to a romance series and sets up a lot of characters that can be developed and dived into.

The main couple in here are a bit of a forbidden love trope - which is not something I have read before.
So it is about a University student and his rowing coach. There is that power dynamic, naturally, but the age gap is not significant - I think around 6 years.

The main issue I have with this is the lack of communication trope. A lot of the couples' issues could easily be resolved with a conversation. I also thought the coach read a bit young.

Apart from that, the sex scenes were strong. The dynamics between them were pretty good. I really liked the coach's friends perspective as well.

3.5 - 4

I’m not going to call Rocking the Boat a total loss, but I found myself pushing to get through it. So what was my issue? Mainly Nick. He was supposed to be the “older wiser” person in this relationship, but he failed miserably. At least in my opinion. Morgan made some mistakes, but he had his youth that kept me from getting as aggravated with him as I probably should have been.

So, maybe I’m being a little harsh and I could have forgiven Nick for giving into his attraction to Morgan, but it was more how he handled things before and after they got together that really bugged me. *sigh*

Having said all that… I haven’t given up on this series. It was interesting to learn about a sport that I didn’t know much about. The dynamic between the other characters kept me reading more than the main characters, which actually gives me hope for the continuation of the series. I’m hoping that a couple of my favorites are going to be featured in future books.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of CalPac Crew. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

In this contemporary M/M sports romance set in the world of collegiate rowing, the author does a great job of providing readers with an understanding of the sport and the hard work it takes for the coxswain (think "onboard coach") to perfectly synchronize eight rowers in a 60' shell and turn muscle into motion.

Rowers have been called the world's best conditioned athletes and in Rocking the Boat we are introduced to student / rower Morgan and graduate student / Coach Nick Bedford and all the streneous work it takes to perfect their bodies and skills. And once the two men begin a relationship, the author gives us some very sexy, sensual scenes featuring those perfect bodies. The heat level of this book is nicely toasty!

On the way to their relationship, there is plenty of angst, worry and backtracking, covered in great detail. When Morgan spots Nick at a gay bar with his BFF Drew, Nick panics, saying he is not gay. He sets up Morgan and Drew on a bad date, is unreasonably jealous of Morgan, and vacilates between wanting a relationship with Morgan but worrying about repercussions of a coach dating a student.

There is much made of the difference in their ages (28 vs. 21) but on-page Nick reads less mature most of the time. Or maybe it's that Nick comes across as being very un-self-aware. He takes his anger at Morgan out on the rowing team without realizing his actions. He stresses communication is crucial for everyone on the team, yet he doesn't communicate to his rowers, and fails to communicate with Morgan personally as well.

The book caught my interest at the start with the rowing crew, and the sparks of interest between Morgan and Nick. The middle slows as Nick struggles to finally enter a relationship with Morgan, but in the midst of all this, there is some pretty exciting racing action. The author really excels in giving us the drama and excitement of rowing. And I would strongly suggest watching the excellent PBS American Experience documentary "The Boys of '36" about the University of Washington rowing crew that captured the gold medal against Hitler's elite German rowers.

Overall, I'm giving "Rocking the Boat" 3.5 stars because although there were some elements that just didn't work for me, I like the general setting of the series, the amazing rowing and the also pretty amazing sex scenes. This is the first of four books in the CalPac Crew series and I will look forward to reading more in this series.

It was okay. Found myself skimming a bit. I know nothing about rowing, so it was kind of neat to read about that. But overall just a normal romance novel.

Coach Nick Bedford is happy with is life. He's in a graduate program for exercise science and he's the head coach of the men's crew team at California Pacific University. In his late 20s this is a decent living. He tried finance and didn't like it, and he's much happier helping his athletes find their best skills and abilities. He'd like a steady boyfriend, but he's also pretty securely in the closet with his job, so it's not a hardship that he doesn't have a significant other.

What is particularly grating, however, is his keen awareness of one of his athletes, Morgan Estrada. Morgan is just 21 and a junior at Cal Pacific. He's tall and lean, like all the rowers on the team, and the attraction Nick is feeling is definitely more than he truly wants to acknowledge. There are lots of regulations barring sexual relations between coaches and athletes, so Nick knows that his attraction to Morgan is absolutely out of bounds. Beside that, Nick doesn't want to come out and perhaps face accusations of macking on his rowers. And, he doesn't even know if Morgan is gay--he is not out with the team either. Nick highly suspects that the coxswain, Stuart, is gay but no one really discusses these personal details openly.

The more Nick notices Morgan, the more Morgan picks up on it. Morgan has had a low-key attraction for Coach Bedford since his freshman year, but always thought it would be unrequited. And, how cliche, to crush on his coach, right? Morgan doesn't see his infatuation as a problem; he's a grown man now, and Coach has never been inappropriate. In fact, Coach Bedford had been the epitome of honorable, conscientious and driven. His devotion to the team had inspired to step up his training and make the varsity team as a sophomore. Now, when it seems like Coach might be less than straight, and possibly interested, Morgan wants to test those waters as soon as possible. He's frustrated when Nick lies about his attraction--and makes an unreasonable request of his own best friend to act as a decoy to Morgan.

This is a bit of a taboo romance due to the coach-athlete connection. That said, these two do dance around their mutual attraction for a bit. Nick's bestie, Drew, is a great foil and sounding board as Nick moves through the season with all this personal conflict. I loved how Drew let Nick have it after being conned into asking Morgan out--and the aftermath of that scenario follows Nick for a good third of the book. Stuart is quick to tear into his coach, too, because he's had a crush on Morgan for years, and as a close friend to Morgan, saw how Nick hurt him by setting him up with Drew. The fact is, these guys really do see a future with one another, their connection, once it happens, is not simply lust-slaking. It's instead world-changing for them, and it's hard to keep that a secret. And the added conflict of a rower discovering their secret nearly capsizes their budding romance.

There is a fair amount of angst here, mostly for Nick who truly bears all the responsibility and consequences that will undoubtedly ensue should Nick and Morgan go public. There is a reckoning, and believable reconciliation. And. the end is happy, with a glimpse at the next couple to be featured in this series. Nice sexytimes, but they don't take over the story.

During the first part I couldn't put my reader down - during the second part I had to force myself to pick it up again.
The blurb sounded really amazing! A sports romance with a bit of an age gap and a power hierarchy and so I decided to read the book. And while the first part really features all the conflicts that come with the above-mentioned tropes (pondering, longing, lusting, a little bit of teasing), so that you as a reader are really tuned to know how and when they come together and how they will make it work, the second part when they actually are together is quite...boring. And incredibly incoherent with the first part. Nick Bedford, 28?, coach for a college rowing team and former rower himself, has to face his desire for one of his rowers, Morgan. And Morgan also finds his coach extremely attractive and sexy. So there's a lot of eye contact and glancing and fantasizing - to a point where the reader cannot be sure whether they deal with grown men or horny teenagers who get hard every time everywhere. Anyway, the first part is hot! And eventually Nick blows all complications and worries in the wind and starts something with Morgan. Except, he doesn't. While the consequence of all the pent-up desire would be that they become intimate and passionate, they suddenly are fine "just" kissing which hugely contradicts the first part. Where did all that lust and passion suddenly go?
This review reads like it's all about the sex scenes of a book which, of course, it is not! But this books suggests a hot forbidden romance which simply didn't come to pass. It's not very consistent in that way which eventually makes it boring to read because the appeal of the first part of the book was the chemistry of attraction between the two man characters.
Speaking of characters: Morgan sometimes tends to behave like the cliché of a teenage girl. Whenever that happens it seems out of character. Points for amazing side characters: Nick's and Morgan's respective best friend. They are both fun and sarcastic and I always wished for the two of them to find each other; unfortunately it seems to go in a different direction in a possible second book.
To sum it up: Great first part of the book, really nice idea and setting. Boring ending, okayish main characters but lovely side characters that make up for some of the burbling plot.

This definitely isn’t my usual type of read, but I think it’s healthy to personally step out of our comfort zone, and that was this book for me having never read a book with LGBTQ love interests before.
The underlying story is really sweet, after all the butterflies and giddy heights of new love are not exclusive any gender, and they warmed my heart in this story.
There was reference to the stigma and judgment that still exists even in 2020 for people in the LGBTQ community, which I find heartbreaking and maddening and wholly unacceptable.
The book was definitely more explicit that I was expecting, but hey, I’m a woman in her 50s so I can cope with that.
Overall reading the book was a positive experience.
My thanks to NetGalley, NineStar Press and the author for allowing me to read this book in return for an honest review.

This book started out slow, but then I really got into it midway through the book. The more I read this book, the more I felt like I knew Nick and Morgan. They were both great characters. The build up of chemistry between the two was very intense. I really hope to read more about Brad and Drew.

A was a little hesitant because of the blurb but I actually really enjoyed this book.
While I'm normally not one for books with obvious power differences I thought it was quite well done here. For one both protagonists are male and over the age of 21 with an age difference that isn't too bad. Both also acknowledge the problems that can result from their unequal positions.
While there were a few corny parts, the book overall was very sweet and had just the right amount of steam. Also the yearning in the first half was perfect. I can't wait for Drew and Brad's book!

This is one of those slow burn M/M romances, where you either enjoy getting lost in the framing device-- in this case a college rowing team... or you want to rush through to find the romance. Nick is a grad student at one school, and a rowing coach at another. He unexpectedly finds himself attracted to Morgan, one of his team's best athletes. Matters of ethics and the heart go to battle.

Should he or shouldn't he? Should they or shouldn't they? Ethically, of course, they shouldn't-- but where romance is concerned, logic seldom follows.

If you like a romance with a 'bigger story', this one should please you. I especially liked the supporting characters, adding relevance and perspective to the MCs' dilemmas. It will be interesting to see where the author takes this series in the future installments.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for and honest review.

I really liked the balance in this book of sweet romance and steamy scenes. I feel like its hard to find mlm own voices erotica, so I really enjoyed getting to read this one.
My only complaints would be that this was a very predictable novel that felt very similar to many other romances. Also, I love sports books, but I felt like this book went a bit too in detail about the sports bits to the points that it was a bit confusing as someone who knows nothing about rowing.

Koehler's novel is a steamy romance with a taboo relationship: coach and athlete. The protagonists Nick and Morgan are working towards college sports greatness as they work to get their little private school rowing team to the big competition at the end of the season. Along the way, it becomes evident that they are very distracted by one another. There is a lot of angst because of Nick's post as coach and Morgan's prominent spot on the team. The drama over the ethics is plausible, yet could be seen as maudlin by some because of how subdued some of the reactions are and how overly amplified it is by others (there's very little in between the two extreme sides). Ultimately, it was a quick read because there was a steady build of tension in all the ways you want a romance to do.

It can be hard to write an erotic romance novel as the balance between erotic and romance can become very tricky. Author C. Koehler rises to the occasion and provides a credible story in an interesting setting- the world of college rowing. His characters, Nick and Morgan, Drew and Stuart are likable and the human element comes through. Everyone probably has a different opinion on when two guys who have been lusting for each other should finally connect for sex. Here I found it hard to believe that the two lovers could actually sleep together without having sex. They sure took their time to do it, but the author says they waited to "get it right." Many of the novel's turns are predictable, so it's in the real emotions that the author shines. I liked the novel and found it to be a stirring tale of lust and love.
Thanks NetGalley, for the ARC.