Man am I a sucker for a sports romance novel. Basketball is one of the top sports I’ll read about, and I enjoyed that this was a little different than the usual “two teammates getting together and are rivals” type of trope.

Arianna is a professional basketball players in her prime, focused only on the sport and being the best player. Nicole is a seasoned veteran when it comes to commentating women’s basketball games. Both have been circling one another for years, but things change when Arianna literally falls into Nicole’s lap.

Some things to point out is this is an age gap, with about 12-13 years between them. Arianna is 29 and Nicole is 42. I did appreciate that the author wrote this portion well. Often times I find age gaps (especially this large of an age gap) very obvious with the way the two MCs act, and that’s where I tend to have the most issues. Both Ari and Nic were really mature and meshed well, it was easy together forget the distance in ages.

I can also always appreciate when there isn’t a third act breakup. While sometimes necessary and can be wrote create, this was a much lighter read with them never fighting.

Where I found it lacking (well, technically where it was too much) was the cheesiness of the book. Now, I love love, but the way this book was wrote was just TOO much. It was very squishy on the love and I felt myself cringing a few times, this was the same during the explicit scenes as well.

I chose the rating mainly for this, it was just something I couldn’t get past and get on board with, but the story itself was fantastic.

This is my second book by Sienna Waters, the first one was absolutely amazing and I couldn’t put down. This one left more to be desired, and in a not so good way.

I didn’t feel the connection between the two MCs Eveline and Emery, there was just something about them that didn’t click right. It could’ve been that their relationship felt rushed and forced, or just that it was a bit too cheesy for my liking.

The ending was ridiculously cheesy, and unfortunately made me cringe a bit. I’m a sucker for the overly romantic gestures, it just didn’t work for me.

I liked the idea of the main problem the two MCs had, but I do think the route to the end should’ve been different. Essentially, they weren’t together then suddenly they were with little conversation. I think if the story would’ve been longer with more build up in every section of the story, it could’ve been executed better.

This felt…. very mediocre. It was as if I was reading a template for a romance story, one commonly used.

The relationship between Ray and Mina felt forced, they didn’t feel like they were meant to be together. There was nothing they had in common, the way they interacted felt awkward, and everything felt rushed. There was no real connection between the two.

I like the thought behind both of them pushing one another to not allow others to control or manipulate them, but that’s where my enjoyment ended. Ray felt like a child compared to Mina, and they just didn’t click.

Their whole situation was weird, both staying in Ray’s sister’s place for 6 months, and her sister just being cool with her little sister and best friend shacking it up.

There could’ve been so much more added into it, more build up, explanation, details. To be honest, Mina was kind of mean to Ray a few times, and Ray had no backbone. They also repeated things multiple times in consecutive chapters so that got a bit annoying as well.

It was overall cheesy and a typical romance story, one that I couldn’t find myself liking.