Before Roxy found herself “Single in Buenos Aires,” she was a single girl in London in search of true love. The third installment of The Polo Diaries series takes us back to that time, and we follow Roxy as she hires a love coach to help her navigate the dating scene. But the love coach comes up with an unexpected assignment: reconnect to a long-forgotten passion. For Roxy this means horses. Within weeks, she finds herself playing polo, thanks to a series of unforeseen events.
Torn between her desire to become the best polo player she can be and the dream of falling in love, Roxy steps fully into the exciting and demanding world of polo, where injury and recovery mix with hard training, and where celebrating the victory of a tournament comes at a high price. Will Roxy eventually become the polo player she dreams to be? And with polo being such a demanding sport, can there be any space left for love?
Purchase Links
UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Half-Minutes-Polo-Diaries-ebook/dp/B083KB87KG/
US – https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Half-Minutes-Polo-Diaries-ebook/dp/B083KB87KG/
Seven and a Half Minutes – Extract 5
Context: Polo Player Roxy is trying to concentrate on the game but is heavily distracted by a handsome guy who’s come to watch her play.
Sure enough, the umpire and the rest of us wait until my sexy biker arrives at the center and is told by some friendly spectator to sit and watch outside the safety zone.
I’m feeling a little bit embarrassed by the lack of polo knowledge displayed by my potential date, but I have no time to dwell on it because the ball has left the umpire’s hand, and the familiar scream fills my ears once more:
“Plaaaay!”
I spur my horse into immediate action because I want to play well when sexy biker is watching me. I get the ball soon and then glance towards the spectators to see if sexy biker sees me with the ball, and I can’t tell because it’s too far. In the meantime I lose it because it only takes a second of letting one’s eyes off the ball for an adversary to steal it.
Then I try again, but no chance this time; the game has moved somewhere in the distance, and I try to catch up with them, galloping on Sorpresa, thinking about Pedrito and his jokes and whether all his tack-testing mistakes have been remedied.
“Rosannaaa! What were you doing last night?” I hear his shout across the polo field.
Oh, shut up, please. Don’t embarrass me! The Old Man likes to do this sometimes, and when he starts, there’s no way to stop him.
I am trying to hurry up since I guess what bothers him is my lack of adequate speed, but the shout comes again, within earshot of all my teammates.
“Rosannna! What were you doing last night?”
My blood comes up into my cheeks, but I carry on riding fast, trying to get away from him and his comments.
“Drinking? Partying? Not possible to play so bad if no drinking last night, Rosannaaaaa!”
I don’t know if this is because I’m too slow or I’m losing the ball, but it doesn’t matter. I wish he would shut up. I wonder if he’s picking on me because he noticed that sexy biker has come to watch me. He is like this, the Old Man, he likes making jokes with his players, especially when there’s a potential romantic connection within earshot. And he sees everything. On or off the polo field.
A ball hits me in the head. Thank God it was me and not the horse; at least I have a helmet. But the Old Man has his eyes on me, and I suffer one more comment about being asleep on the horse, which influences the quality of my playing today, or rather the lack of it.
Every time we go close to the spectators, I wonder if sexy biker is watching me and if I look good enough in the saddle. Is my back arched tall enough? Does my bum look too big? I know I should be thinking about the game, but I just can’t stop thinking about my sexy biker.
Then we stop because there is a fault, and the other team has a penalty to take, and the Old Man gives me even more grief.
“Wake up, Rosanna! Wake up!”
Yes, all right, I will. Please pick on someone else, I think as I take my place next to the guy from the other team I’m supposed to mark. I make sure I’m on his stick side, otherwise I’ll get more annoying comments from the Old Man.
The other team hits, and all of a sudden the ball is in front of me. I will hit! This is my hit and we’re even close enough to the sidelines that sexy biker can see it properly. A quick thought flashes through my mind. I read in a polo book that I should visualize the word SLOW just before I hit the ball, no matter how fast I go. I try to do it but instead I see the word STILL. All of a sudden everything around me becomes still, and the horse galloping under me is no longer there. The wind blowing through my nostrils has stopped, my mallet slowly rises up behind me, and I am contained inside a bubble of stillness. For a fraction of a second, I breathe this stillness in deeply as the head of my mallet falls behind me, then follows through, and somehow miraculously finds the ball. Shot!
“Buena!” shouts the Old Man. He’s as generous with his praise as he is with his critiques.
Author Bio
Roxana Valea was born in Romania and lived in Italy, Switzerland, England and Argentina before settling in Spain. She has a BA in journalism and an MBA degree. She spent more than twenty years in the business world as an entrepreneur, manager and management consultant working for top companies like Apple, eBay, and Sony. She is also a Reiki Master and shamanic energy medicine practitioner.
As an author, Roxana writes books inspired by real events. Her memoir Through Dust and Dreams is a faithful account of a trip she took at the age of twenty-eight across Africa by car in the company of two strangers she met over the internet. Her following book, Personal Power: Mindfulness Techniques for the Corporate Word is a nonfiction book filled with personal anecdotes from her consulting years. The Polo Diaries series is inspired by her experiences as a female polo player–traveling to Argentina, falling in love, and surviving the highs and lows of this dangerous sport.
Roxana lives with her husband between England and Spain, and splits her time between writing, coaching and therapy work, but her first passion remains writing.
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Everything Is Better With Dragons 