Review: Dirt on the Diamond: A Baseball Duology

Dirt on the Diamond: A Baseball Duology by A.J. Matthews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll like to start by saying thank you to the authors for allowing me to advance read this wonderful duology. I’m unsure when it happened, but I found myself subscribed to the mailing list of one of the authors (Heather Young-Nichols) and through this I found that the authors were looking for people to advance read the duology. I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about baseball (it isn’t really a thing on my side of the ocean), but I was intrigued as to what the stories would give.

I can safely say I was pleasantly surprised. It was a wonderful little duology – something you can read in no time at all, whilst being more than worth the read. I’d expected an enjoyable read, but what I was given went beyond what I had originally anticipated.

The first of the two stories is Stealing Home by Amelia Matthews. This one tells the story of Jack Behr and Kitty Fitzgerald. Back from war and facing troubles in society, Jack is finding life less than pleasant. Enter Kitty, the girl to turn things upside down. I was instantly surprised to find Kitty was the bigger baseball player in the story. I know it’s not unusual for females to play the sport, but in the time the story was set it would have been a little unusual. Of course, this all adds to the story. After all, the story does a lot more than bring two people together through a sport.

It shows how love can help a person through a difficult time. It shows how people can stand up for what they believe in. In fact, I’m not going to continue the list of messages sent. The story has so much depth to it, so much more than you would expect from a story so short.

It really does bring to life America post World War Two, whilst managing to be a super sweet tale.

The second of the two stories is Head in the Game by Heather Young-Nichols. This one tells the story of Zev Cohen and Wrigley Behr. Yes, you read correctly, it’s another Behr story. This one, however, is set in the modern day. We’ve moved forward through the generations, reading about the grandchild of the two characters from the first book. This might be a bit of a spoiler as to what to expect from the first story, but we all knew that a happily ever after was to be expected.

As with the first story, this was a sweet little tale. It’s a lot more what I’m accustomed to reading when it comes to romance stories, but there are some similarities to the first. Not enough for it to be a repeat of the same story – it is far from that, in fact – but enough for the two to tie together beautifully beyond the lineage between the stories.

Again, as you would expect, it is a beautiful tale of how the sport brings two people together when they both have their own difficulties to face.

Overall, I loved them both. I refuse to pick a favourite, as they were both wonderful in their own way. The only thing that disappointed me, if I’m honest, was the insta-love. It’s to be expected in stories of this length, but such a thing will always bugs me. Whilst there was a little bit of burning in both of the stories, I had wanted more. Nevertheless, I was content enough with what I was given.

As a whole, a beautiful duology. I really am grateful to have been given the chance to advance read this duology.

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