I’m not a sports fan, but I do like a good sports romance, and having read the synopsis of début author KD Casey’s Unwritten Rules, I had high hopes of finding one within its pages. But while the book gets off to a good start, I’m afraid those hopes were dashed before I got to the halfway point. It doesn’t tread any new ground in terms of the storyline (closeted pro player worried about the effect coming out could have on his career) – and that’s fine; tropes are tropes, and it’s ultimately all about what the author makes of them. But while KD Casey can clearly write and really knows her stuff when it comes to baseball, the book has a number of fairly big flaws that make it impossible for me to offer a recommendation.

The story is told entirely from the perspective of Zach Glasser, a catcher with the Oakland Elephants. He’s Jewish (although not particularly observant from what I could gather), he has hearing loss in one ear, and in the first part of the story, he’s been playing in the major leagues for four years. He’s also gay and deeply closeted, he’s never had a relationship and is so terrified of anyone guessing about his sexuality that he seems to spend his life constantly assessing and regulating his behaviour to make sure he doesn’t give himself away. He knows he can’t possibly have a career in professional sport as an openly gay man and has told himself he’ll be able to have a life after he retires. But that’s quite a few years away yet.

Then Zach meets Eugenio Morales, a young up-and-coming catcher at spring training, and although they’re vying for the same place on the team, Zach is asked to take the other man under his wing. Eugenio is a fast learner; he’s also handsome and outgoing and Zach, who has never really allowed himself to get close to anyone, finds it hard to resist his overtures of friendship. It takes Zach quite a long time to see those overtures for what they really are, however; but once he clues in, he and Eugenio (who is bi) embark upon a very secret, very passionate affair.

It’s in the book blurb, so it’s not a spoiler to say that the relationship crashes and burns. Eugenio can no longer deal with the secrecy – and Zach’s near-paranoia – and Zach, despite promises he’s made, is no closer to coming out than when they first got together.

The story is told in two timelines – “three years earlier”, charting the development of Zach and Eugenio’s relationship from their first meeting, and then the “present day” sections which show them getting their second chance after a long separation. I liked the structure, which means we get to see both first and second-chance romances unfold on the page and it generally works well, although the second-chance romance doesn’t feel as well fleshed-out as the first. And that leads me to one of my major issues with the novel as a whole, which is that the romance is pretty lacklustre. I never really connected with the characters or felt the connection between them because there just isn’t enough of who they are outside of baseball; we spend all of the book in Zach’s head, but I couldn’t tell you much about him, and Eugenio’s characterisation is even sketchier. As a result I never understood what attracted them to each other – other than a mutual interest in baseball. Their chemistry is lukewarm at best, and practically all the time they spend together in the first timeline is spent with Zach terrified about someone finding out about then; his fear of discovery permeates the entire story and I found it exhausting at times. I’m not belittling the very real prejudice still faced by gay athletes in professional sport, but in most sports romances, there’s room for some lightness and the joy of making that important connection, of really being seen – but this is just unrelenting fear and gloom and Zach getting in his own way. (I didn’t blame Eugenio one bit for getting out.) And there’s no let-up in the second timeline, which revolves around Zach’s fears of what will happen when he comes out. A lot of the time, Eugenio feels like an afterthought and I came away from the book feeling as though what I’d read wasn’t a romance so much as it was a story about one man’s journey to self-acceptance. The ending is abrupt and something of an anti-climax, and I’m not sure I ever got used to the third person present tense narrative, which seemed like a really odd choice.

But the biggest problem I had with the book is that it’s very baseball-heavy – and I know nothing whatsoever about baseball. Okay, it’s a sports romance, so there’s going to be some actual sport in it, but this isn’t like Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series or Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy’s Him books, where the hockey is present in such a way that even a sports-hater like me can enjoy the story without needing to know too much about hockey. In Unwritten Rules, there is hardly a page without some reference to baseball on it, and while the author does a wonderful job of putting the reader there in the stadium dirt with the players, the rest of the time I was completely lost amid technical terminology and talk of triple-and-double-As, stats, opt-outs, trades and various playing techniques. This meant I had no idea what was at stake for these characters and as a result, couldn’t understand their motivations and decisions. At best it was incomprehensible and at worst it was boring, and I skimmed entire pages of baseball-talk because I had no hope of working out what it meant or why it was important/relevant. I felt like I was reading the book from a distance through a sheet of thick glass. Of course, this is a highly personal thing – if you understand the sport, you may well get more out of the book than I did, although that doesn’t negate the other problems I’ve outlined.

What makes it all the more disappointing is that KD Casey is obviously a talented writer, but she gets so bogged down in the minutiae of baseball that the characterisation and romance are sorely neglected. As a result, Unwritten Rules is a book that will probably only appeal to a very small, niche audience – and I’m afraid that audience doesn’t include me.

Grade - C- / 2.5 stars

A sports romance for sports fans!!! I loved this book! The **accurate** (praise be) discussion around baseball and the characters careers was PERFECTLY balanced with the building romance and tension. Loved loved loved it.

3.75 stars

As a sports romance, this was practically everything I could have asked for, and I loved it! Both MCs are baseball players, and a large chunk of the story takes place during spring training when they first meet. They're both catchers who get to know each other while spending long hours together at practice, waiting to see who makes the final roster cuts, and all the little details were exactly what I want from my professional athletes. It's a weird life, and I like getting an inside glimpse at all the bits and pieces that go into it. The author came through big time in that regard.

She even sold me on the second chance romance, which is one of my least favorite tropes. I usually struggle to buy into either the separation or the reconciliation, but this one moves back and forth between the present and past in a way that works really well for that aspect of the story. 

There is a very distinct contrast with the spring training atmosphere and the almost joyful energy that tends to bounce off the pages of my beloved hockey romances, though. That's not a complaint -- I get the sense that it's an accurate contrast and one that I found very interesting to explore -- but I didn't realize how much I rely on that uplifting atmosphere to balance out the tension of the razor's edge these MCs tend to walk when trying not to get caught together.

In this one, that tension is combined with a low-key sense of dread that's hanging over all the happier times of the chapters set in the past because you know what's coming from the very first scene of the book. The MC is now leading a pretty solitary life that he's no longer finding much to be satisfied with, and it drapes a sense of melancholy over the majority of the book that I was not expecting. It was really good, but it had my heart in knots for a lot of the book. (It didn't help that the main source of conflict is something I tend to avoid for anxiety purposes. Thankfully it's handled well and doesn't ever take over the plot.)

And thank goodness I read it anyway because it's the best thing I've read in weeks! I can't wait to see what this author does next.

I don’t really know the rules of baseball, it’s not readily available to watch in the UK, but there are plenty of pointers in this story to give me the general picture. I did speed over a few paragraphs when the lingo got too intense. That said, even though there were a lot of what seemed unnecessary information in the plot line, it all came together to make for a truly addictive, highly emotional story. Zach Glasser is very much down on his life. He’s a closet gay who has very little self confidence, but an extremely large heart. He’s very much a, the glass is half empty kinda guy when it comes to his life. Then Eugenio Morales enters his ballpark, and wham, his life changes forever. Together they should be able to conquer the world, but no, it looks like Zach’s paranoia might end them. I had so many emotions while reading this, happy, sad, annoyed, angry. I felt sorry for Zach. I was annoyed with Zach. I felt sorry for Eugenio. I was annoyed at Eugenio. You name it. I felt it. A highly emotional and highly enjoyable read. I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is my honest review.

Rainbows and Sunshine
October 17, 2021

I love sports romance and I cannot remember the last time I read one focused on baseball. Unwritten Rules is a second chance romance and deals with coming to terms with your sexuality, especially when you're an athlete.

Zach and Eugenio have a connection from their first meeting and their chemistry is palpable. It is written entirely from Zach's POV, alternating between past and present. I liked the format as we can see both romance in parallel. I felt the book to be a bit slow and it took me a while to get into it.


Zach is gay and Jewish with hearing loss and deeply in the closet while Eugenio is bi, Venezuelan and also playing the same position as Zach, i.e, catcher.

So usually when I read sports romances, even though I know pretty much nothing about the sport, I can enjoy the novel very well. And I know even less about baseball than say ice hockey or football. But for this one, baseball is equally important as the romance and that impaired my enjoyment. I think you'd love this even more if you're a fan of baseball.

*ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

Zach Glasser lost the best thing in life when he left fear dictate staying in the closet. Fear of losing the sport he loves, the friends and family he’s never told, any chance of happiness with a man who had come to mean far more to him than a team mate.

Three years comes and goes but fate has more in store for Zach and Eugenio. They both get selected to play in the All-Star Classic. It doesn’t matter that it’s been years. The chemistry between them is still off the charts.

So y’all know I love a good sport romance novel. They are my JAM. Add in a second-chance romance, friends-to-lovers trope? I’m about it. There’s so much diversity in this novel, like you would see on a true professional baseball team. Also, Zach has a hearing disability which wasn’t treated as a brief mention. It was present throughout the novel.

I read this when I was supposed to be napping … FYI no naps were had. I couldn’t stop myself from reading.

The way this story was told, in chunks of past and present, really worked. At first it was a little off putting because I expected the traditional one chapter past, one chapter present format. This wasn’t like that. Any time there was a shift, it was easily recognizable.

Do you need to know anything about baseball to understand what is happening here? Nope. You do get pieces of spring training, the all-star game, and activities around the club house, but KD Casey paints such a vivid picture that you don’t really need to know anything about baseball.

Now the romance … it was gooood. The way they flirted with each other in the early stages. While they were training, and when they were together during their off hours. Followed by some steamy kisses. Yes please! I’d give this a 🌶🌶 .5 out of 5 on the spicy scale

Zach’s character, he had my heart. Sure, he fell in love with Eugenio (who had me all 😍 too), but he discovered himself. I liked seeing him understand what he valued in life and the steps he was would take to get there.

Welcome to this book review,

DISCLAIMER: I received an ARC of this book (which thank you so much for the opportunity to read it), my thoughts are my own.

This book was if anything a fast read. It had all the making of a new favorite. It's a M/M romance surrounding two baseball players. It is a second chance romance, after one of our MC couldn't/wouldn't come out. I loved that our other MC did not give him an ultimatum I loved that he knew he wanted to be out and that this wasn't what he wanted and just walked away.

I liked the format of the book, how we were sometimes three years ago getting to know how they met, their history and past & other times in the present when they are reunited at an All star game.
Both characters were flawed and there is a lot of rep in this book. One of our Mc is latino and bisexual, it is said explicitly which was a nice change of pace (contrary to "he has no labels" which is fine until the character is clearly bi and nobody wants to mention it).

While this book wasn't perfect for me it was really nice, I enjoyed the monologues and writing. I did however find that there was a lack of 'present day' timeline considering they had been apart for three years and not seen each other or talked in the meanwhile.

I hated SPOILER: when they finally have sex in the present and yes Zach was an asshole in the past with the lies about trying to come out and such, but I hated how our other MC uses sex as "taking action to get forgiven" (Zach forgiven not him) and then proceeding to in the middle of it, say how he was with other people. Zach is clearly uncomfortable asks to not talk about that right now, and he's like: prove to me I wasn't crazy and that you were better at sex than them. END SPOILER

Something to keep in mind is that you get a sort of HFN (happy for now) ending, it is very open and to me with so many conversations left unsaid and things that were talked about happening for more than half of the book felt meh. I wanted to feel like I had finished their story up to the point, unfortunately it wasn't a couple more pages or a chapter or two could've wrapped it up nicely in my opinion.

Overall a nice, but not amazing read.
For most of the book it stood at a 4 stars up until the spoiler and ending that dropped it to a 3 stars for me.
3/5 stars
Bookarina.

I enjoyed this book. This second chance romance was a hard hitter emotionally. The story was nicely written and held my attention well. I thought that Zach and Eugenio were likable and I felt they were easy to root for. All together a good read.

I will often pick up a sports book and I have read several baseball stories recently. Many sports stories focus on the players coming out and Unwritten Rules is another one. The book is told in present day, as well as flashbacks going back as long as three years ago, to give us Zach and Eugenio’s story.

A lot of sports stories focus on the great players, but here we get a look at the players that fight their way onto the roster every year. The ones that are decent, even good, players that fill out the team, but never feel secure in their place on any team. Zach is shown to be that player and every day is a grind for him. From his Jewish family that would rather he marry and settle down instead of play baseball, to Zach feeling cut off at times due to wearing a hearing aid, to him fiercely and desperately hiding the fact that he is gay. I wasn’t quite sure if Zach’s status on the team was the way he saw himself or the way it truly was and, since the entire story was from Zach’s point of view, it was not always clear.

Eugenio is not as much of a main character as Zach is. We know some things about him, but more things that we don’t. We never get into his head on how he sees his relationship with Zach or what he wants for his career. Eugenio is also always shown as extremely tired and has trouble sleeping. At one point it seemed like this would become more of his story, but nothing develops from it.

I did like that this was a different side to baseball than is normally seen in the genre, but this story was slow for me to the point of becoming tedious a lot of the way through. The past and present format never gave us much time to see Zach and Eugenio as a couple, even in private. We see them become friends and then start a relationship, but then a lot is off page and their breakup is never shown in detail. Then, we watch them rebuild their friendship, but Eugenio is still off page often. By the end, we know the men want to be together and they do take steps to make that happen. While I am okay with not everything in any story being all wrapped up, there was too much from different angles still left open and there was still much of Zach’s story left to tell and more that wasn’t known. Once Zach started making some changes in his life, well into the book, the story picked up for me for a few moment,s but it wasn’t enough to carry this book through from beginning to end.

I love baseball. And I love reading romances that involve baseball. So seeing this was 2 baseball players? I was here for it. But dang. This book is DENSE. There is SO. MUCH. BASEBALL. And not regular season games. Close to half (it seemed) was spring training. The minutia of a catcher framing baseballs and a pitcher tipping a certain pitch. I have a feeling that a lot of readers might stop reading just for that. It was just way too much.

Another thing that really drew me in was that one of the main characters, Zach, has hearing loss. And how that affects daily life was really well represented. But being that it is such a big part of who he is, when he finally addresses it, it's like a throw away comment. "Oh, probably genetic..." Seriously?

When Zach and Eugenio are together, it is great. The practically vibrate with their love for each other. And even though it is Zach who wants to stay firmly in the closet, it is Eugenio who has parents who are very religious and even teach various religious classes at college.

There is a lot of back and forth as well. Three years ago, present day. Back and forth. Gimme 3 years ago all at once, then time jump.

When we finally get to only present day, all of the back story is told, it just kind of ends. The book was Zach's journey to the point of coming out of the closet. And he does, but not publicly at all. It seemed very unfinished.

If you can get through most of the baseball talk, there is a decent romance there between them. But the technical aspects really bogged the story down.

4.5 stars rounded down

A good debut novel.

I confess to looking at a few reviews on Goodreads before writing this one and I found one that was particularly insightful in my opinion. While I don’t agree with everything the reviewer wrote, what was written is so much more concise than anything I’m able to write. There’s no way I can come close so I’ll just write about some of the impressions I got while reading.

This was a long book for me (around 105,000 words according to the author’s website), but I enjoyed reading it. It took me a little longer than normal to finish a book of this length and I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first is the POV. We’re in Zach’s head but He/His pronouns are used and my research tells me that means it’s third person POV. But it’s not written like any other novel I can remember reading and it took me a little while to adjust to this style of writing. The second reason is the use of so many terms that I didn’t really understand – even in context. One of the reasons I use an eReader is so that I can easily look up words I don’t understand but this book was so full of them that it became tedious instead of educational.

What I liked about this book was how the characters interacted with each other. I also enjoyed the shift in the timeline – between present day and 3 years ago when Zach and Eugenio met. I sometimes find books that shift between two or more timelines difficult to read but I had no trouble with this one.

While I know next to nothing about baseball, I used to enjoy watching the local farm team play when I was a kid – many, many, many years ago. So, I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes baseball stuff a lot, even when I didn’t understand all of the jargon. I had more difficulty with the ethnic languages/terms used. Note: I don’t mean anything disrespectful and not understanding a lot of the terms is really my problem and not necessarily the writer’s. I’m only mentioning this because it did take me out of the story a few times but, again, this is more my problem to solve than the writer’s. I actually really enjoy reading books that challenge me to understand and learn new things. I just think that there was so much in this book that it was a little overwhelming for me at times.

Once I really got into this story, I had difficulty putting it down. Eventually my sleepiness couldn’t be ignored so I had to wait and finish it when I woke up. When I noticed that I was nearing the end of the book I knew there wasn’t enough left for me to be completely satisfied with how it ended. I’m one of those readers who almost always wants more but I really did feel a bit cheated that this book didn’t have an epilogue. I mostly feel like there was an HEA but also think it leaned more towards an HFN. I wanted to know more about their life a few months or years down the road. I hope that there will be more books in this series and that Zach and Eugenio appear in them to give us a glimpse of how they are doing.

A review copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley but this did not influence my opinion or rating of the book.

Unwritten Rules by KD Casey is freaking amazing! I'm seriously in love with KD's writing and this story, and you all need to get it!

I really, really enjoyed this! A bit slow and repetitive (certain phrases and the way that characters smelled in particular I noticed and started keeping track), but overall a heartwrenching and gentle second chance romance.

I am personally a big baseball fan, and Casey clearly is too as baseball is the bread and butter of this story. I'd say its a baseball story first and a romance second, if I didn't already think that baseball is already inherently a very romantic game :)

Zach's struggle with his internalized homophobia was very heartbreaking and realistic to experience with him. I really fell in love with Eugenio through Zach's eyes through flashbacks and the current day All Stars time!

Overall an excellent story, especially for a sports fan like me :) others who have a low tolerance for baseball probably won't enjoy this very much, but I do think that you can come into this book completely blind and Casey's explanations of the game will be enough that you don't be lost! Though you'll have to wait until next year to see more live baseball ;)

I really struggled with this book. It is definitely a slow burn and I felt the author developed the characters well but spent way too much time on the development and explaining baseball terminologies. It started to drag and get boring. I would've appreciated if the author focused more on the characters and them falling in love.

I know almost nothing about baseball, but I am a total ace when it comes to romance, so let me tell you that this one hits it right out of the park in all the important points. It's romantic above all, with the prerequisite sad points and some phenomenal character development. And it's well-written enough that even the parts that go deep into actual baseball facts and actions are interesting and easy to understand for someone who barely even knows what baseball is.
I really liked the character of Zach Glasser in all his world-weary veteran player glory. He hides and buries the most important part of himself to play the sport he loves, but he puts himself out there to help fellow players play their best and find their own happiness. And then there's Eugenio Morales, the rookie who comes into his life and makes him realize that it's possible to be happy and that waiting for 'later' might not be the only option he has.
A big part of the book is spent wanting to hit Zack over the head for not fighting for what makes him happy, but I think it actually shows a very realistic view of the difficult choices people have to make around coming out to family, friends, and their work.
Zack and Eugenio are such a cute couple that I really hope we get some kind of follow-up novella or even a whole book of them being happy together.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Carina Press for the early read!

This! Is! A! Queer! Disabled! Baseball! Romance!

This is such an exciting, emotional debut. A second chance m/m romance with a Jewish Hard of Hearing veteran baseball player and the man he loved 3 years ago, a young Latinx catcher who was threatening his spot on the team. It's told in present tense, single POV with dual timelines and a whole lot of angst.

This book is, in its very soul (can books have souls?) a book for baseball lovers. KD Casey's writing is so infused with a deep love and respect for the sport, and it makes me nostalgic for baseball in the way that only old baseball movies (a la A League of Their Own, Field of Dreams, Sandlot, etc) can. The writing is so vivid and dynamic and emotional. I loved the baseball world that they crafted. I love the baseball-playing lesbians and the conversation about money and dreams, I loved the conversations about the dynamics of marginalized identities within the sport, I love the inside jokes that reference modern players and teams, and I loved the deep, abiding love for baseball players as people that is infused throughout the book.

This is a coming out story. Sometimes I find books about coming out - especially ones that are in the romance genre - jarring and challenging, as a person who has and continues to experience the coming out process. So just a heads up, this is very fundamentally and intrinsically a coming out story. In fact, I would even say that this is more of a coming out story than it is a romance. It is firmly Zach's story of wrestling with the decision to come out, both in the past and in the present, and it deals with the strain that being in the closet can have on a relationship

I actually would have wanted more of the romance in this one. By the end, I didn't feel like I knew Eugenio really well at all, and I wanted to learn more about how their relationship helped them both grow. Because it was single POV and was so much Zach's story, I found it harder to have compassion for Eugenio and his experience, and in that way it was hard for me to forgive him for pressuring Zach to come out.

It is hard to love someone who is not ready to come out, and it is hard to come out. I want us to have space for people simply not being ready to come out and to be public, especially those who are in positions of visibility like Zach is. And yet, I found myself searching for a conflict in this story that could be pinned down. I wanted to understand more about what both drew these men to each other and what kept them apart, and I wanted to understand what it was within Zach's heart and soul that made him wary about being openly himself.

Reading this book is an incredibly immersive experience, and I felt so delighted and respected as a baseball lover while reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Carina for the ARC! Please note, I have a social relationship with the author on social media, but all of my opinions contained here are honest.

I am a HUGE baseball fan. I've been a baseball fan my entire life, and I have a better than decent amount of knowledge, likely more than the average baseball fan. So, a lot of the terms and baseball verbiage that were used were things I knew and understood. That being said, I would venture to guess the average baseball fan, someone who watches occas, would not understand a large portion of the baseball terms in this book. It was extremely detailed in that aspect, which if I was reading a baseball book, would be completely understandable, but as this was intended as a romance, I think it was likely too much detail. I will say, though, the author clearly knows her stuff when it comes to baseball. There were a few other details that struck me as strange, such as locations/events that were very closely named to actual MLB names, but only very slightly changed. Perhaps this was to avoid any trademark infringements, however, then I would think those things should have been changed completely.With the romance, Eugenio leaves the team he and Zach were on, because Zach wouldn't come out. And I couldn't blame Eugenio one bit. Zach's self loathing must have been hard to deal with. We get to see both the past and the present for these two, and seeing how difficult was for both of them was very sad. They had a lot in common, and clearly felt for each other, but with Zach feeling the need to stay in the closet, it was not their time.Zach needed to spend some time growing and learning that he deserved to be himself, to be loved. And I almost felt the book really should have just been about that, not necessarily about Zach and Eugenio. There wasn't a ton of chemistry, in my opinion, again, likely because it was so much about Zach and where he needed to go, and very little on Eugenio's journey.All in all, I think that the book could have been shortened down by about 10,000 words to get rid of what I think was (for me as someone knows all these terms, and spends entirely too much time watching it) too much baseball (words I never expected to say), and spend a little more time romancing the reader. I'll always take an HEA/HFN, and this one provides that.3.5 pieces of eye candy

This book may become one of my favorite ever.

Sure, the first third was a bit tedious. I know nothing about baseball, and baseball speak was prominent. I’d need a thesaurus for everything about the game, the facilities, the equipment, even the inner politics. But I like to think I learned something, and though it felt superfluous at the beginning, it helped with creating the setting, and explaining where the characters came from when they complained about something or enjoyed something else. Despite some trouble understanding everything, I couldn’t complain that there was sports in my sports romance.

That’s also during that first third that we meet the main characters. In various moments of their life. The story is told exclusively through Zach’s point of view, and between two periods of time–at the beginning of their relationship, and after… something happened that we discover bit by bit. There were a lot of little hints at things that happened before, or would happen later, several connections between the past and the present of the characters. That was well thought out. And it piqued my interest because after witnessing their blooming friendship and subtle seduction, I wanted to know what happened that they barely spoke to each other three years later.

Though the romance between Zach and Eugenio is an important element of this book, I felt it was like a side dish, and the main course was really Zach’s journey-the evolution of his career and what he expects from it, the way he deals, or not, with his sexuality, his relationship with his family, his friends, his team, his slow realization that something is rotten in the state of baseball. With a bunch of side characters who illustrate all the problems through their genre, their sexuality, their origins, the author shows racism and sexism in the sport. Big topics for a sports romance, uh?

There were some repetitions–how many times do they have to drink Gatorade, really? But all the seemingly meaningless moments helped with relating to the characters, all my senses stimulated with detailed descriptions of places and smells and overall feelings. They sometimes cut into conversations, and that wasn’t always smart. But I liked them.

I really enjoyed this hot and meaningful male-male sports romance, it was a great debut for the author. I’m looking forward to more of her work.

Quickie

- Series: standalone
- Hashtags: #MM romance #sports romance #baseball #bisexual #closeted gay #multicultural relationship #jewish #disability
- Triggers: N/A
- Main couple: Zach Glasser & Eugenio Morales
- Hotness: 5/5
- Romance: 4/5
- + bisexual character? character with a disability? jewish character? latin American character? yes please!
- – I know NOTHING about baseball and the baseball talk was sometimes tedious

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

Q: What’s everyone heading into the weekend reading?

My angst-meter has been re-calibrated thanks to some recent fantasy reads & good thing because I think it helped my heart handle KD Casey’s Unwritten Rules a little easier 🤣.

This second chance sports romance interspersed with flashbacks is beautifully written, with heartbreak & desire, regret & connection captured on the page & a love story that shines.

Zach Glasser isn’t expecting his former secret lover Eugenio Morales, also a catcher in the Majors, to be at the All-Star Classic game. It’s been a few years since they were lovers, since Zach decided he wasn’t willing to give Eugenio what he wanted & needed & Eugenio walked away.

Zach is mired in regrets but still deeply distressed at the thought of coming out to anyone. But he wants Eugenio back.

Told in a structure somewhat similar to People We Meet on Vacation, Unwritten Rules amps up the angst-meter with extended flashbacks that reveal Zach & Eugenio meeting, practicing together, forming a friendship, eventually becoming lovers, separating, & now meeting again.

It’s painful seeing Zach struggle & both of them hurt, just as it’s such a freaking relief & a real source of happiness to see Zach, willing to work on himself & Eugenio, to open himself up to Zach again.

KD Casey writes this couple so thoughtfully: I feel like I could describe both MCs & their relationship so well & that’s because she gives such a good sense of who they are, the challenges they’ve already overcome—Zach is Jewish & has a hearing aid & Eugenio is Venezuelan American—& these things aren’t always appreciated by their fellow baseball players—& the things that draw them toward one another.

With Unwritten Rules KD Casey offers a stirring, resonant romance that I won’t soon forget…& also taught me some things about baseball 🤣.

4.5 ⭐️. Release date: 10/12.


CWs: Zach experiences real distress & anxiety at the thought of coming out & this might be painful for some readers.

Sometimes, all you need in life is a gay sports romance. They just hit differently, and that’s a fact. Unwritten Rules delivers all the best parts of one.

So what makes a good romance? Compelling characters - check. Great chemistry between them - check. Some pining (because deep down we’re all here to hurt a bit) - also check. A believable plot is a great bonus, I would say.

Characters’ personalities are always something one person will enjoy and another won’t, but the thing we can all agree on is that both Zach and Eugenio feel like real people with real problems. And that’s what makes this such a good book. Personally, though, what I enjoyed the most is that there isn’t a single part of their characterisation that was introduced and then simply forgotten. Zach’s hard of hearing and that plays a role throughout the whole story, he’s Jewish and it’s visible in more than a random mention of him going to a synagogue (actually playing a giant role in his family, as well). And the same goes for Eugenio’s Venezulean roots.

Yes, it’s a second-chance romance, but frankly, first of all it’s a story of a gay guy finally and slowly coming to terms with his sexuality. This isn’t to say the romance is weak, since the literal opposite is true. Rather that the whole time, even in their honeymoon phase we get in flashbacks, Zach’s internalised homophobia is ever present. It’s in the tiny things, like rethinking texts he sends out of fear someone will hack his phone; in double checking no one is around before kissing Eugenio; in his desperate need to touch Eugenio in public and not being able to. In a way, his inability to be open about his desires allows the first part of the book to be full to the brim with pining. And isn’t that what we’re all here for?

Unwritten Rules is a captivating romance, with amazing characters who work hard to resolve their issues. And as a cherry on top, the writing is absolutely gorgeous. Not a book you want to miss out on!