Genre: Contemporary fiction, sport, romantic fiction, young adult

Stars: 4

Links: Amazon UK and Amazon US

 

The Blurb:

Baseball player Kyle Sawyer has many labels: bad boy, delinquent, ladies’ man, fearless outfielder… Only one of them is actually true. But then sweet ballet dancer Faith Gladwell asks him to help wreck her reputation, and everything goes sideways.

Faith knows a thing or two about love, and what she had with her cheating jerk of an ex wasn’t it. When he starts spreading rumors about her being an Ice Queen, Faith decides it’s time to let a little bad into her life.

Lucky for her, Kyle Sawyer–dark, dangerous, totally swoonworthy Kyle Sawyer–is landscaping her backyard over Spring Break. Shirtless. And if she can convince him to play along, ” dating” Kyle will silence the rumors.

But Faith’s plan threatens to expose Sawyer’s biggest secret of all…and that’s a risk he’s not willing to take.

 

My Review

With a tough heroine and a lot of angst-less emotion, this is a sweet young adult romance between a clean-cut ballerina and a bad-boy baseball player.

Faith is reaching the end of her tether with her boyfriend, but when he cheats on her following a fight, she dumps him. The resulting rumours (that she’s an “ice queen”) leave her furious. So when Kyle, the school’s bad-ass baseball player, turns out to be her mum’s new garden landscaper, Faith decides payback couldn’t be sweeter. All she asks for is for him to participate in a few “scenes” to set the rumours straight. And Kyle, harbouring a grudge of his own, is all too happy to play along. But the more time to the two of them spend together, the more real it all becomes…

The writing was pacy, the dialogue witty and believable, and the realism enveloping. The author managed to paint the awkwardness and wonder of first love in a relatable and (relatively) drama-free way. Sweet without being saccharine, this is a lovely YA romance. Recommended.