Hello everyone! I am so super incredibly excited to tell you guys officially that our next theme week here at Joyfully Jay will be JOCK WEEK! We will feature books on all kinds of athletes — professional, collegiate, high school, former athletes, coaches, and maybe even some weekend warriors who just like to get out there and work up a sweat. My goal is to include a wide variety of sports and a range of different stories. I love a good athlete hero and I hope you do too.
Jock Week will run from February 24 – March 2. I know that seems like a long way away but we have a lot of planning and reading to do and these theme weeks take a lot of time to organize.
So, where do we start? Well, as usual I need your help.
Reviews
As with our past theme weeks, I would once again like to hear your suggestions for books to review. Ideally we’d like a mix of sports, as well as both older and newly released books. So readers, if you have a favorite you’d like to suggest or something upcoming that intrigues you, I definitely want to hear about it. And authors and publishers, if you have a book that fits in with our theme that is either already published or will be available in time for review for Jock Week, please let me know. We obviously won’t be able to manage reviews for everything, but as long as it features athletes and we haven’t already reviewed it here, we’ll definitely give it consideration. I am hoping to at least get the basics of our review list down in the next week or two because we tend to amp up the reviews during theme weeks and we need some extra reading time. So if you have suggestions, please share them soon.
Giveaways
Once again I would love to do a nice juicy giveaway to go along with our theme week. Everyone was so incredibly generous for Young Love Week and our giveaway was just spectacular. So again, authors and publishers, if you have books that fit with the Jock Week theme that you would like to donate for the giveaway, I would love to have them. No limits on this one — we can accept books we have reviewed already as well as those we haven’t. I greatly appreciate all your generosity and I know the readers do too.
In case you haven’t seen how these work, the giveaway post will feature a book title, author, cover image, and full book blurb, as well as listing who made the donation. You can check out the Young Love Week giveaway post for an example. And I promise I have a better plan this time for distributing the winning books to speed things up a bit.
Guest Posts
I am also looking for a few folks who are interested in writing a guest post to feature during Jock Week. Maybe you are a reader who is a super sports fan and want to talk about your love of the game? Or how much you enjoy football pants? Or an author who is majorly into sports and loves to include them in your books? I am open to any ideas that connect with our theme and would love to includes some guest posters during this week. Don’t be shy!
So yep, this should be totally awesome and I am really excited. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas and appreciate all your generosity.
P.S. If you are not familiar with our theme weeks, we basically spend a week focused on one particular trope or theme. All the books we review include this theme, as well as themed guest posts and giveaways. In the past we have held Young Love Week, Rock Star Week, Virgin Hero Week, and Spectacular Series Week.
LT3 wise, Stalker might fit, it comes out Feb 13th and I have the galley ready right now (and we’re totally happy to offer it as a giveaway)
Non-Lt3 wise, there’s Two-Man Advantage and In the Penalty Box, an old favorite is T.A. Chase’s Out of Bounds. I don’t read sports much, so I’m probably not very helpful :3 But I loved the other themes, so am looking forward to this one ^__^
Ooh, good suggestions Megan! I actually have at least one of two of those TA Chase books in that series that I haven’t gotten to in my TBR pile so that is good. And I’l check out the others as well.
I will definitely check in with you about Stalker! Thanks so much.
I second IN THE PENALTY BOX…it’s the best hockey m/m I’ve read so far. (Haven’t read TWO-MAN ADVANTAGE yet..)
Love Andrew Grey’s Workout series!!! And he has a new one coming out (FINALLY!) towards the end of January.
Oh yes, I just saw that. Good suggestion!
Actually, I just read a post on facebook that the new one – cardio conditioning – is available on amazon! Woot!
I know it’s after your Jock Week but DSP’s Daily Dose in June has a sports theme this year.
I second T.A. Chase’s Out of Bounds book.
Bicycle Built For Two by Jeff Adams was a cute little short.
Horizons by Mickie B. Ashling was good too.
Steamroller by Mary Calmes has a college football player as one of the MCs.
Jeff Erno’s “Dumb Jock” series are good. The first is the best though.
Anitra Lynn McLeod’s Twin Pine Grizzlies series has football playing bear shifters. Really good series.
Oh, fabulous suggestions Amanda! I will definitely add those to our possibilities list. We have already reviewed Steamroller but maybe we can sneak it in for a giveaway! 😉
Jay,
One of the characters in Where He Ends and I Begin is a former college football player. If that’s close enough to make the cut, I’m happy to donate a copy for your giveaway.
CC
Ooh, yes, that would be perfect! I will definitely take you up on that. Thanks!
Great idea! A few suggestions… the CalPac crew series by Christopher Koehler, Caught Running by Abigail Roux & Madeleine Urban, Pine Tar & Sweet Tea by Kerry Freeman, Out in the Field and the Dark Horse series by Kate McMurray, Overdrive by Ariel Tachna, Open Tackle by L.C. Chase, Tigers and Devils & Tigerland by Sean Kennedy, and J.M. Snyder’s Playing the Field series. 🙂
Ooh, all great ideas Shae! We have reviewed a few of those already here but I will add the others to our possibilities list.
Hi Jay! SJD Peterson has a new book that will be released by DSP on Feb. 6th. It’s called Plan B and it’s about a supposedly straight football jock who dreams of playing in the NFL. At a frat party, Lance meets and falls for an androgynous guy named Danny. It sounds really good. The complete blurb is on the Coming Soon page at Dreamspinner. Another story I read several years ago is A Perfect Game by Reno MacLeod and Jaye Valentine. It has a college student who wants to be a professional baseball player getting involved in a BDSM relationship with his professor. I really liked it!