This match is no game.
When a rogue wave strips Tess Dunn of her bikini top, desperate, half-naked times call for desperate, please-cover-me-kids-are-coming-closer measures. Enter Lucas Karlsson, AKA that flirty Swede in the water nearby. When he prevents her bare buoys from being exposed to fellow vacationers, even an ocean can’t drown the sparks that fly.
Lucas, a former top-level tennis pro now giving lessons at the resort, fled there after the abrupt, painful end to his injury-plagued career. But he’s finally ready to move on with his life—and after a few late-night, hands-on sessions with Tess, he’s eager to prove he’s the ace she wants.
But this match comes with challenges: She’s forty, and at twenty-six, he’s barely old enough to rent a car. Worse, they only have two weeks together before Tess returns to her assistant-principal life in Virginia. During that brief time, they’ll have to play hard, take a few risks, and find out whether their chemistry is a one-shot wonder…or whether they’re meant to be doubles partners for life.
Review:
Such a fun read!
I really enjoyed Lucas and Tess’s story–that meet cute! the snarky banter! Lucas’s honest appreciation of Tess’s, well, everything! Not to mention Tess’s body positivity–truly, what’s not to love here? 🙂
Really, this was as close to a “read in a single sitting” story as I get these days–I started and finished this one in a single Saturday. I was torn between wanting to get to the HEA as soon as possible and needing to slow things down because I didn’t want to leave these two. The struggle is real, y’all.
The age gap between the hero and heroine was nicely handled–I felt for Tess so hard with her gray hair and bad knees! Lucas’s past as a tennis pro and all that he went through when that ended definitely helped level the playing field where these two are concerned–he’s not your average 26-year-old in terms of experience, and it shows in the real man who hides beyond his flirty exterior.
Their relationship does develop fairly quickly–it is a vacation romance, after all! Though Tess’s is two weeks long instead of the one mine usually are, at least–but the epilogue is two years in the future, giving their HEA a more realistic feel than it otherwise might have had.
Ms Dade’s book ends with a teaser for a story in the next book in the There’s Something About Marysburg series, Sweetest in the Gale and I am so here for this book! While I wait for it to come out, though (sigh!) at least I can go back and read the first book in the series ( Teach Me ), which is now sitting on my Kindle (40-Love worked just fine as a standalone, but now I need to read allllll the Marysburg books!)
Rating: 4 stars / A-
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.