Well, I ended up really enjoying The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt. It was filled with lush, flowery prose and romance and pining (oh god the pining). I hold that the first two-ish chapters are a little stilted but the book really hits its stride when the two MCs begin texting, and I was absolutely captivated and completely unable to do anything else but read until I finished it.

That being said, the only thing I found kind of odd about the book was for all the plot points that concern the main characters’ chosen professions, I know very little about their professional life. Matthew is the son of a big name hockey star, he’s in line to be drafted into the NHL as a goalie, and a big part of the book is how him coming out will affect his hockey career. And yet, there’s all of one scene with Matthew on the ice during a game. I know more about what art means to Matthew than hockey. Likewise, with AB, there’s a few mentions that the band has a drummer, and even fewer mentions that AB plays piano and so does another bandmate. (I imagine AB sings, but I can’t even confirm or deny that.) That is the entire extent of what I know about the band dynamics, about his band mates, about AB’s musical sound. All this is so bizarre to me, I have to guess it was intentionally done to make Matthew and AB seem less like celebrities and more like your average Joe, but I can’t help but wonder if a better happy medium couldn’t have been reached.