Buy: Kindle Ebook | Paperback | Audio

Review

4 stars

I really liked this one! A smart, sweet and sexy college romance with fantastic characters, a nice amount of drama and a gorgeous love story. Oh, and football… lots and lots of football!

Knox Masters is the campus football god – captain of the team, and headed straight into the NFL at the completion of his junior year. He’s driven, confident, but without being cocky, and he believes that keeping his focus on football and his studies, in exclusion to all else (including women and sex – yep, he’s a virgin!) has contributed to his mad success.

And then he meets Ellie. A recent transfer to Western State, Ellie is happy to be away from her controlling parents and living her own life. She’s at school with her older brother, Jack, who is also on the football team, and she shares a mad love for the sport. And from the moment Knox meets Ellie, he knows she is the one for him.

When you meet the girl who’ll be sitting on the front porch holding your hand when you’re eighty, you don’t let a thing like cool dismissive looks, big brothers, or fucking rules stand in your way.

Ellie is completely uninterested in dating a football player. She’s had a bad experience in the past, which had huge implications for her brother, and initially she doesn’t want anything to do with Knox. But Knox is persistent, and he is determinedly and openly pursues her.

“Masters, this won’t go anywhere.”
He draws back slightly and frowns. “Is that how you think of me? As Masters? I’m not your teammate.”
“I’m not anything to you.”
The side of his mouth quirks up. “That’s what you think.”

I loved the start of this relationship! It’s antagonistic, but not. They both want each other, but for very good reasons Ellie is holding back. But the more time they spend together, the more Knox’s confident but sweet nature starts to shine, and the anticipation builds beautifully! He wears his heart on his sleeve for Ellie, and it was gorgeous to see. I totally fell for him!

“If all I wanted was a quick lay, you and I both know I could get that without any effort. I want something more than that from you.”
“Welcome to disappointment. It’s character building.”
… “I’m not experienced, but I know when a girl is into me, and you’re into me. You want to play it casual, then that’s how we play it… for now. But fair warning, I’m bringing everything I’ve got to tear down your resistance. My specialty is reading plays and then overcoming the barriers.”

And when he finally knocks down Ellie’s walls and gets himself in there… HOT DAMN! The man was waiting for the right girl, and now that he’s found her, there’s no holding back, and he is making up for lost time. The sexy time is sizzling! Ellie is a lucky, lucky girl!

“I give myself over to his dominance. His wildness feeds my own until I barely know where he ends and I begin. We are one, infused with the same euphoria, possessed by the same need, bound together by the same love.”

But Ellie is keeping a secret – one that is about to be revealed and which could have devastating and permanent repercussions for the people that she loves the most.

I was waiting for the drama, the whole story builds to it but I had mixed feelings with the way it all played out. Initially I was thrilled that it was all being dealt with sensibly and functionally, without dragging out the drama or dissolving into epic stupidity, but then there is the big heartbreaking moment, and I was devastated at how Ellie handled it.

Thank God the angst doesn’t last too long, and all is soon resolved, although…

But hey, we get a happy ending, and that’s the most important part.

“We don’t get to pick the family we’re born into,” he says into the quiet night. “But we do get to choose the family we live with. I choose you. You’re all that I’ll ever want.”

It’s pretty obvious that this is a sports romance, but let me warn you that this is a SPORTS romance. Football is a major theme, and it takes up a lot of the story – in great detail. As a non-American reader, I have no knowledge of or interest in American football (though I have enjoyed romances featuring football before), and I have to say that I found these parts to be really boring. I didn’t understand what the author was talking about most of the time and my eyes started glazing over as I read. I started off googling some things, but eventually I just skimmed a lot of it, (which I usually never do) because it just didn’t make sense to me. But that’s a minor complaint, and one that’s very specific to me personally, but just be aware before diving in that it’s a bit part of the story.

For me, it’s all about the romance, and that is absolutely gorgeous. I could feel Knox and Ellie’s chemistry, and I lapped up every moment of them being together. Yes, it moved fast, but it didn’t really bother me. They shared an intense connection from the very beginning, and that built beautifully into a fun, loving, functional and passionate relationship, and I loved it!

“We didn’t fall for each other. We fell into each other.”

This is my first book by Jen Frederick, and I was really impressed! Her writing is really smart, and while the set up may not be completely original, this book has a really unique ‘feel’ to it, and I love the direction that she took the story. Written in dual POV, she does a great job of establishing Knox and Ellie’s individual personalities, and I love their voices and the way they tell the story. I also really loved the extended group of characters – especially the camaraderie between the boys on the team, which was a definite highlight – and I’m excited to see who is going to get the next book in the series.

4 stars.

Gridiron series