e-ARC provided by PRH International
Author: Ali Hazelwood
@prhinternational #PRHinternationalpartner
Mallory Greenleaf is done with chess. Done. It was the reason her family imploded and she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Her focus now is on providing for her ailing mom and her sisters. Until she is “gently coerced” by her best friend into playing in a charity tournament and she wipes the floor with Nolan ‘Kingkiller’ Sawyer, current World Champion and Bad Boy of Chess.
Who’s this “rook-ie”? Nolan is mesmerized by Mallory and will do anything to have her across the chessboard again. And Mallory has just now figured out that chess may keep food in their table.
One game at a time, her love for chess is rekindled. It doesn’t hurt that the intelligent, handsome, clever and infuriating Nolan is right there to make things oh so very interesting!
“The Queen’s Gambit” has already proved that the world of chess is far from boring. You do get a lot of chess talk but it’s palatable.
This book is categorized as YA, which means the romance has a little heat but the doors are very very closed. I believe that if this had been a new adult contemporary romance it would have been perfect.
I loved how we all know what’s going on with Nolan but Mallory! The pining is good in this one!
All in all, a fun romantic story with the chess world as the background and an important discussion about the role of women in the sport.
Rep: FMC is bisexual, queer rep in secondary character, hero is a virgin
Possible triggers: Loss of parents and parental figures, financial insecurity, estrangement from parents
