Me, loving a college sports romance? This is probably the most wtf reading choice I’ve made this year.

I’m an alien-, historical-, fantasy-romance girlie. Not a college sports romance girlie. At all. The last college sports romance I read was a book I DNFed 7 years ago. 

Rightly or wrongly, my impression of the subgenre is it’s about jock-ish womanizers, girl-hate about puck bunnies (or whatever we’re calling female side characters), heroines who Aren’t Like Other Girls, and our curiosity about “what that (elite athlete) dick do?” 😅

I say all that to put this review into perspective. Because this book was lovely! And ridiculously unputdownable.

The fake dating in exchange for tutoring premise made me feel so nostalgic. My “but why aren’t they for real dating 🧐?” scepticism was perfectly handled on-page. And our heroine was totally like other girls, which is to say, she was great!

The fake dating was my favourite kind. Not the ‘denying their feelings’ kind—it was the ‘they know they have feelings and the fake dating expiry date is going to rip their heart out but they do it anyways’ kind. Which is so much more angsty, love that.

And our hero was just such a good boi. The whole story was just so sweet and emotionally honest, I was having a great time!