Rating: ★★★.5
Audience: Sports Romance
Length: 302 pages
Author: Vai Denton
Publisher: Self Published
Release Date: October 9th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Delilah Anderson is no stranger to sacrifice where her siblings are concerned. Who needs to go to college when you have three hungry mouths to feed and pro tennis money in your sights? Except it’s not that simple. No matter how hard she works, the bills are piling up ad infinitum. When her doubles partner decides to start focusing on singles, she knows the margins are going to be razor thin.

So when Matteo Corsi, three-time Grand Slam winner and a friend of a friend, offers to play mixed doubles with her, it should be a no-brainer. She doesn’t believe he’s as hateful as the media claims, and with her new endorsement deal, teaming up with him could give her the financial breathing room she needs. But after years of carrying her family on her back, accepting help isn’t Delilah’s strong suit.

When circumstances force her hand, Delilah reluctantly agrees. As the days blur together with drills, practice matches, and lighthearted teasing, she realizes there’s more to Matteo than she ever could have imagined—not to mention what getting him to reluctantly smile or seeing him shirtless does to her.

Matteo is a distraction she can’t afford, but one she’ll have to navigate to keep her (im)perfectly constructed life from falling apart.

I HAVE THOUGHTS.

There are very few people who could convince me to drop what I’m reading and pick a book up, my sister is one of those people. This was not on my radar until she told me I might like it, and I did like it! 3.5 stars might seem otherwise, but I’m still on board to read the second book in the series so I consider that a positive.

This might be my first tennis romance?? And I may be a sports girlie but tennis is not at the forefront of that knowledge base. I liked learning about the tournaments and how playing singles/doubles worked and that there’s big facilities for all of training.

I liked the grump x sunshine trope between Matteo and Delilah. I thought they were a sweet couple and the spice wasn’t superfluous. I do think there was a quality to the relationship that seemed, superficial? While some deeper topics were explored I think the shortness of the story left something to be desired. There were MANY paragraphs dedicated to listing out random things that did not build the setting or story in anyway (to show my work: one long paragraph detailed every piece of art on Del’s bedroom walls and I just don’t think that was necessary). A little more show vs. tell would go a long way.

And I am grumpy over the third act. While short (hallelujah), I’m tired of FMC’s being angry over the love interest being helpful? Especially when it’s not vindictive, came from a place of love, and wasn’t a genuine over step. The resulting “fight” was silly.

All of this to say, I liked the side characters. I do think Delilah showed high levels of resilience of hope even when she’s had to hold things together for so long. I loved seeing the soft side of Matteo and I will forever love a man down bad.

Overall audience notes:

• Sports romance
• Langauge: mild
• Romance: 2 open door scenes
• Violence: low
• Content warnings: driving after drinking (side character, no one is injured), alcoholism/addiction, absent parent, loss of a parent (recounted)

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