Kris Bryant always writes characters I can’t help loving

Being a woman in the NFL is no mean feat but Sutton McCoy made it. Not as a quarterback like when she was in high school but as the next best thing: she’s the new offensive coordinator for an NFL expansion team. Little does she know her first hire will be her high school nemesis Grayson Moats, the obnoxious player who married her ex-girlfriend. And that’s only the first surprise…

The story is told with “Present” and “Past” chapters. Kris Bryant made the interesting choice of using the flashbacks backwards. The first of these chapters is Sutton’s team beating Grayson’s (that’s not a spoiler, it’s very early in the book and the chapter title gives it away) and from then on, all the chapters set when the characters were teenagers take the reader further and further back. Knowing what happened after what you’re reading is always an exciting experience, elevating foreshadowing to new heights. Because you know the what but not the how nor the why, not the journey. I enjoyed that for most of the book, even though after a while, when the “Past” chapters got to the very beginning of when Sutton and Parker met, the stakes were so low the foreboding feeling disappeared. That’s, however, when the “Present” chapters picked up, both in pace and tension, and the whole evened out.

I don’t know how she does it but Kris Bryant always writes characters I can’t help loving, whether or not I click with the story itself. It’s true with Sutton and Parker again. I liked the story too, some things I saw coming, some I didn’t, and overall it was a really nice read. But I absolutely loved the longing, the push and pull. It doesn’t matter than American football is a mystery to me, I understand love and pining and I got all that and more.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the cover because how hot is that? 4 stars.