The November 2021 #TBRChallenge theme is “Competition.” The most obvious tropes (enemies to lovers, battle of the sexes) are not really in my wheelhouse, so I decided to dig around on Mount TBR and see what I might have in the way of sports romances, where one of the main characters was a professional athlete. That seemed to fit the bill well enough.

This book is exactly what it says on the tin: Danielle Stewart is an environmental activist, the leader of a nonprofit working to keep the local Springfield Creek free of waste. She’s currently fighting an uphill battle to deny a local company the permits it needs to dump their waste into the creek. Jacobe Jenkins is a local professional basketball player in sore need of some good PR. He has a reputation around the league as a hothead and a trouble-maker, and indeed finds himself serving a five-game suspension at a very crucial part of the season. Jacobe and Danielle went to college together – Danielle tutored him, in fact – and they shared one hot night together before he declared for the draft. They will solve each other’s problems quite nicely: Jacobe’s star power can bring much-needed attention to Danielle’s legal battles, and all the publicity for pitching in for a local cause will add a bit of shine to Jacobe’s reputation.

These two are still hot for each other, but Danielle insists on laying down some ground rules. If Jacobe wants her in his bed, the path forward is not through her work. Jacobe very much wants to start up some sexytimes with Danielle again, and works just as hard to charm her as he does to lend his star power to her cause. Against her better judgment, Danielle succumbs to her passion, and the two start a relationship. Complicating matters are the fact that Jacobe is looking to score a move to an all-star team-in-the-making in Phoenix, which hinges on his ability to lead his current team to the championship.

First, what I enjoyed about this book. It was imminently readable; I basically read 56% in one sitting and only put it aside because my work day had started, LOL. There wasn’t too much politics surrounding the water dumping permits. It was fun to get a peek into the life of a superstar professional athlete, and it felt very authentic. I also liked Danielle’s fashion sense: I agree that cardigans go with everything, and I loved that she kept her own style even after hooking up with millionaire Jacobe.

Unfortunately, the romance left me pretty cold. These two are unable to communicate, and spend quite a bit of the book making assumptions about the other’s motive and acting accordingly. Jacobe’s main traits seem to be jealous possessiveness and dominance, which I do not find appealing at all. He’s also of the “betrayed by a woman once and thus will never trust again” school of hero, bleh. Most of the story from his POV is about how hot he finds Danielle, how much he wants to get her naked, and how much he wants her to support him in his career. He doesn’t want her to do something she wants to do because of the presence of an ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t think exes can be ‘just friends.’ He expects Danielle to conform to his wishes because that makes him most comfortable.

And Danielle just sort of lets him have his way. When her dream vacation pops up on the same day that Jacobe invites her to his place for the first time, she decides that no, she’s not going to follow her dream because she’d rather be with him. (Why?!) They start sleeping together on a regular basis but she never pushes him to actually define their relationship, after spending the first half of the book telling him she won’t accept a FWB situation. Granted, she does call him on some of his shit – and she does end up going on that dream vacation, the same trip her ex is also attending – but she also finds his domineering streak super sexy and is submissive to his desires in the bedroom. This is not my cup of tea at all.

Jacobe makes a whiplash decision at the end of the book about his career, completes a surprise Grand Romantic Gesture, and asks Danielle to marry him by the end of the novel, but I never really felt their relationship grow beyond the lust stage, and have no idea how these two can navigate a relationship when they won’t open their mouths and talk. There’s more to marriage than fabulous sex, and I just didn’t get the feeling these two understood that by the time I finished the story.

As much as I didn’t enjoy the romance, I am not giving a star grade because I feel like a lot of it was driven by cultural notes that I completely missed: not only Black culture, but also the politicking that happens in the world of nonprofits, and professional sports culture in general. Decisions that the characters made didn’t make sense to me, so I don’t think its fair to rate a book that I don’t completely understand.

I’d definitely read more books by this author. The ending felt truncated, but otherwise the pace and flow was very nice, and the characters were developed in a fun and believable way. The story stands alone quite nicely, though there are definite story arcs that feel like they either have been, or could be, spun off into a series.