Rating: ★★
Audience: New Adult Sports Romance
Length: 591 pages
Author: E. Salvador
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: August 12th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

He felt like he was drowning.

She was about to drown.

Josefine Resendiz, is struggling to figure out her life. Between her complicated relationship with grief and not having a single clue how to feel what she can’t understand, she’s sinking and isn’t sure how to float back up to the surface.

Daniel Garcia, shortstop, a budding ray of sunshine, and potential first round pick for the MLB Draft, has life figured out. At least, that’s what everyone assumes. On the surface, he’s the embodiment of happiness and life. But beneath it all, guilt and grief have been consuming him since his brother passed away. Unsure how to deal with his feelings, he bottles them up and masks the pain of haunting reminders behind a mask of smiles.

That’s until he stumbles upon Josefine on Christmas Day. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to be there but neither was she, at least not for long. The night evolves into something neither one of them expected and when morning comes, she’s nowhere to be found.

He can’t stop thinking about her. She wants to forget him. But fate seems to have plans for them.

Once the semester begins they find out they have a class together, and avoiding Daniel becomes hard when they’re paired to be hiking buddies. Much to Josefine’s chagrin, she likes him more than she cares to admit. And Daniel is struggling to keep everything he’s bottled up around her.

Hesitantly and unknowingly, they’re opening up old wounds they wanted to keep closed. Feeling grounded around each other. And unintentionally falling in love.

PROGRESSIVELY CHECKED OUT.

I thought this started strong and was in for an emotional romance. I also love a good sports romance so the check list was working for me. I liked the black cat x golden retriever nature of this relationship and the deeper moments that started to unfold between them. I can say there were some quiet, tender things I loved. But unfortunately, too many I didn’t.

For one, the love scenes were incredibly cringy to me. I did not like the word choices and could not flip the pages past enough to move past them. Add in the fact that in the second half alone a big chunk was dedicated to them, I lost focus and wondered if this is how this book became 600 pages.

There was some petty drama with exes that seemed overblown to the bigger underlying issues the leads were trying to tackle. I rolled my eyes one too many times. And this became repetitive alongside many other things.

I don’t have plans to continue this series.

Overall audience notes:

• New adult sports romance
• Language: strong
• Romance: 5+ open door
• Violence: moderate+
• Content warnings: suicide (ideation and mentions of attempts), grief and depression, loss of loved ones

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