After chess led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory Greenleaf’s focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious “Kingkiller” Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning Bad Boy of chess. Nolan’s loss to an unknown rookie shocks everyone. What’s even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory’s victory opens the door to sorely needed cash-prizes and despite everything, she can’t help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist...

February is always the perfect month to read cute romance stories, and Ali Hazelwood always delivers! I don’t know too much about chess, but I love competitive sports and logic/strategy, so the chess plot in this book was so fun! I really liked how Mallory was ultimately able to come back to a sport that she loved while also strengthening her relationships with her family and friends. I really liked the rivals to lovers trope and thought it was so well developed throughout the book. Sometimes Mallory was overly stubborn and self-depreciating, but I loved how her character grew throughout the book. The story was also very empowering for women in traditionally male sports, and also had good LBGTQ+ representation. My only qualm with this story is that it’s represented as a YA novel, but I found some aspects to be a bit mature for a lot of YA readers. But overall I enjoyed this!