Landry is the brother of Corie and best friend of Knox from Make the Play, so I felt like I really knew him well going into this book. Rowan, not so much. She recently moved to Nashville after a bad breakup and works as a physical therapist for the team. Because she was raised in the foster system and has no family of her own, Rowan feels like she’s on the outside of the friend group for much of this story, even though they all try to make her feel included. So when her skeezy ex, Chaz (the best skeezy name, IMO) takes a pay cut to get traded to the team, she understandably freaks out. That’s when Landry steps in to pretend to be her boyfriend and get Chaz to back off.
I love a good fake relationship story and this one hit al the right notes. The “fake” part of their relationship doesn’t last long at all for Landry, and they slip into an easy, comfortable relationship rather quickly. Rowan is hesitant to give in to her feelings because she doesn’t want to lose the family they’ve created if things don’t work out, but it doesn’t take much convincing from Landry before she makes the leap.
There are some rough chapters when Chaz assaults Rowan (so trigger warning), but KR wrote the delicate situation so well, and I felt it made a huge impact on the story, especially in how it propelled Rowan to stand up and fight back after years of being abused by Chaz.
All along the way, Landry shows Rowan every day just how much she means to him in both big ways and small. He treats her like a queen, and it was so lovely to see these two get their HEA!
I can’t wait for the rest of this series! I received an advanced copy and voluntarily left a review.































