“𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 | 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Fresh off a divorce, with front row seats won from her ex-husband in a game of rock, paper, scissors, Daphne decides to drown her sorrows with alcohol. When she accidentally heckles Chris Kepler, a player on her home team, no one is more shocked than she is when her words bring him to tears as he steps up to the plate. Intending to right her wrong, she reaches out to him through her Bookstagram to apologize, but she forgets a crucial detail - mentioning SHE is the one who heckled him. As their online relationship begins to grow, and Daphne is pushed to accept an employment opportunity for the team that requires her to interact with Chris in person nearly every day, lines are crossed, games are played and hearts will break.

⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️

I know all is fair in love and baseball, but the further I read in this book, the more anxious and irritated I became. The constant lying was actually insane. Layla’s response to it was perfectly acceptable because catfishing someone and then trying to date them as yourself afterwards is the work of a crazy person. Chris deserved better.

Overall, I do appreciate the mental health representation, the steamy scenes were well written, and I love all of the book talk and Taylor Swift references. However, all of those are small shiny moments for what was otherwise a very average book, with not a lot happening (other than my blood pressure raising as I screamed at the page for Daphne to just tell the truth).

Read this book if you enjoy:
✨ Lying, liars who lie
⚾️ Baseball Romance
✨ Workplace Romance

Daphne is newly divorced and joins her brother at a baseball game, where he works in guest services for the team. She has one too many beers and starts heckling the third baseman, Chris. Later that night, she messages him to apologize and they end up talking. Only she doesn't make it clear that she was the heckler. When she takes a temporary job as a reporter for the team, Chris doesn't realize who she is. It doesn't take Daphne and Chris long to form their situationship, but he knows her as Daphne, and not her social media name. How long can Daphne keep this a secret?

I've been trying to get into more baseball romances (tis the season - I have two more games lined up this summer!) and I'm so glad I came across this one. Some others I've read have only had mmc’s as baseball players, but you don't get to see any in-game action. Not the case here! I loved how we got to see Daphne grow as a reporter and it was fun seeing her interact with different members of the team. Daphne and Chris have great chemistry. Chris is dealing with the loss of a family member due to suicide and we see this affect his playing. This isn't talked about in great detail, but is mentioned a handful of times. I will say I'm not a fan of the secret/hidden identity thing, but how Chris found out was not how I expected, so that part I did like more than usual. This is my second Alicia Thompson book and both were great!

Thank you to Berkley Romance and the author for an advanced copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF: You love sports romances with fun characters and you're a fan of texting in books.

Ooof, this was a miss. I am not necessarily opposed to a deception but the reveal happened WAY too late. The heroine lying about her identity for nearly 80% of the book and the hero feeling so betrayed and shocked... sorry, but this just wasn't resolved in a satisfying way because I did not believe that they could live happily ever after. It's sad because I really liked the writing otherwise.

I have really enjoyed Alicia Thompsons books and I really liked The Art of Catching Feelings as well. I was a little worried about the secret identity thing but it worked out and I was good with how it worked out. One of my favorite reads of the month and I definitely would recommend it!

I reallllly liked this one a lot. While I own Alicia Thompson’s other books, this is the first of hers that I have read. Because of that, I didn’t have any expectations going in as I wasn’t familiar with her writing. But I really enjoyed it.

The baseball aspect made it a great summertime read and I loved our main man: Chris Kepler. He was so sweet and soft-hearted, and my own heart hurt for everything he was going through. For better or for worse, I connected with Daphne a lot. Her indecision might annoy some readers, but, personally, I found it very relatable. I put page flags on so many quotes, y’all. At one point I even said out loud to myself, “oh my gosh this woman is me.” Hahaha. Yea. So. Like her or not, for good and for bad, I saw myself in her.

I did struggle a bit with the whole lying-by-omission/keeping-a-massive-secret aspect of the plot. There was a certain point in the story where I got super uncomfortable that Daphne hadn’t been honest with Chris yet. I get that it is part of the whole story and how it was meant to be played out, but I also think had that little scene not happened, the weight of her secret would have been just as heavy and hurtful.

Thankfully, the two relationships aren’t dragged out super long so it made it more palatable as the story went on. Don’t get me wrong, I still didn’t like that she was keeping secrets! But it didn’t feel as two-faced as things developed.

(I’m trying not to give spoilers, so I apologize if any of that is very confusing to understand!)

Anyway, I’m excited to check out the author’s other works and will be moving them up the TBR pile to try to get to them sooner.

A fun read that's reminicent of You've Got Mail! Cute and a little spicy too! It was alight read but had a lot of heart too.

i wasn't the hugest fan of alicia thompson's earlier novel 'love in the time of serial killers,' so i was very pleasantly surprised when i really enjoyed this one!

- hate-to-love, but also a secret online romance? the mix worked really well for me
- discussions of chris’ mental health were handled with extreme care
- LITERALLY NONE OF THE CONFLICT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY JUST TALKED
- unexpectedly loved the baseball?

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Tender, hot!, and truly moving - I had so much fun reading this. It made me love Baseball!

The ‘what has she gotten herself into” and “I’d probably do the same’ moments had me living for what would happen next. The plot was plotting with the hidden identity texting and forced proximity in the workplace. I was living my early 2000’s RomCom dreams with this! And that’s just half the reason I love this book so much.

The other half? I loved Daphne so early on, which I have come to expect from Thompson’s writing. By 10% I am deeply invested in her character's happiness, and Daphne was such a stand-out for me. She has been through it, just ending a marriage that stole her self worth. So of course she thinks she can’t possibly have any lasting impact on anyone.

And Chris, a man who cares so strongly about the people he loves. I heard once that romance is just two idiots who need to stop believing lies about themselves so they can be in love. That is the simple way to explain this story. Daphne believes she isn’t worthy of such notice or care, but Chris wants to care for her. After losing his brother Chris thinks he’s failed at loving people, but Daphne feels so cherished by him, twice. I love how achingly intimate it felt.

Another thing I’ve come to expect from Thompson’s writing is the empathy she is able to transfer between her characters and readers. It is unmatched. This handled the topic of d*ath by s*icide with such grace.

There's just SO much I loved in this. I loved the friendship and ‘locker room talk’ between Randy and Chris, it felt real! And it was so unexpectedly sweet the way they cared for each other. I loved Daphne taking care of herself in small ways, even just doing her hair. That was surprisingly impactful for me and had me cheering her on even more.

And the tension between Daphne and Chris which had my cheeks heating! I was actually physically pining over them! This is the, ahem, hottest!!! book Thompson has written so far. The heat is only matched by how tender it is. Romance at its best.

This book is a home run! A knockout? A very good game! Gimme me a break, I'm new to baseball, but it's a win.

Another home run from Alicia Thompson!! I am full on embracing the new baseball romance books that have released lately and The art of catching feelings is right up there with the best of them!!

This dual POV, heckler turned on air sideline reporter who falls for a major league player suffering from the suicide of his brother brought me to tears, made me laugh, swoon and fall in love with Daphne and Chris!! The mental health rep in this story was excellent!!

I absolutely loved this book even though the miscommunication of the online/texting to IRL catfishing esque plot had me cringing for when the lies would all come crashing down. Highly recommended for fans of books like The prospects by KT Hoffman or Wild Card by Staci Hart. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!!

Steam level: some open door spicy scenes

Another sports romance for the win! I loved the characters and their meet cute and I loved the You’ve Got Mail vibes. This was a little bit of a slow burn and I was disappointed that it took so long for the characters to figure it out but overall this was a fun read.

I enjoyed this book so much. I loved the author’s last book, so I absolutely had to grab her new one. It was everything and more. All the feelings, the fun banter, the lovely characters. The cover is so so perfectly fitting to the story. I would ready anything from this author.

It bother me how much Daphne was dishonest though. It wasn’t fair to Chris that she didn’t tell him the truth, as to who she is. I wish she told him early on. She had so many opportunities.

Delicious, emotional, upbeat romance between a baseball player and the woman who heckled him at a critical moment. The characters are terrific, and they have great chemistry.

I think this book made me like baseball?! I loved it and binged it over the weekend! I was so invested in the characters and the story; I could not put it down! I love this author and adored her last two books! Highly recommend!

This is my third book by Alicia Thompson and all of them are five stars in my opinion! A baseball romance publishing the week of the College World Series — if that wasn’t on purpose, the stars definitely aligned for this one! I was already in my baseball era in reality so listening to this while watching baseball was a real treat! Kristen Sieh knocked it out of the park! (Pun intended) I laughed so much from the banter and Kristen delivered it all flawlessly!

Daphne is getting divorced and the one petty thing she can keep in the settlement are the two tickets to a Major League Baseball game. The only problem is Daphne does NOT follow sports. She tries to follow along but ends up heckling a player from the home team. Chris Kepler is having a rough day so the words that would usually roll off his back hit him right in the feels and he proves that sometimes there is a little crying in baseball. Daphne feels bad, reaches out to him on social media, and he actually responds! They build a rapport but when Daphne gets hired by the team with her identity as the heckler known, she doesn’t know how or when she’ll be able to tell Chris that she’s also the person he’s been talking to online. When he finds out the truth, will it be three strikes, she’s out or a walk off win in the bottom of the ninth?

this one is hard to review - i really enjoyed the writing and the characters, but having that huge lie hanging over most of the story was really difficult for me. the author builds the tension well, but i had a hard time with the female lead because of everything. it just took away a lot of the fun!

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced reading copy! I really enjoy Alicia Thompson, and this book had some great elements, but overall I was just too bothered by the catfishing and miscommunication trope in this book to truly enjoy the other elements. Alicia Thompson is great at banter and inner dialogue. She writes lovable and relatable characters. But with how long the catfishing went on - and this was flat out catfishing - I was just too bothered, leaving me mostly annoyed at the FMC Daphne. Yes, she had her reasons, but it was not good enough and distracted from their very sweet romance. I just feel like these characters could have shined without that plot point, but I am not the writer. Also, this book took me a long time to read, and though I have stuff going on in my life, this also shows me it wasn’t one of her best if I was struggling to finish it. To be clear, Thompson’s writing is great and I do recommend this book for fans of her, but again, TOO MUCH CATFISHING.

Despite being a baseball hater, I loved this book! I could deeply relate to Daphne in all her thoughts and choices, and I really loved Chris' vulnerability with her as both Duckie and Daphne. This is a great bingeable summer romance!

I loved this book so much! The pen pal "You've Got Mail" aspect was very fun and their banter over text and in person was fantastic. I enjoyed the baseball aspects of the book and that we got to see some play. Daphne and Chris had amazing chemistry and both characters were likable while also being complex. The writing was witty and also covered some heavier topics. I am absolutely obsessed with this book!

This was great! I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by Alicia Thompson, so I was happy to get my hands on this ARC (even though I totally messed up my deadlines and read it a bit later than I meant to!)
I loved the humor and the lightheartedness that meshed with some heavier themes. I love when romcoms have something beyond the surface and I felt like Daphne and Chris truly connected before actually having a physical relationship. I loved that it was both light and heavy at the same time.
The miscommunication thing can drive people crazy, but I feel like the conflict worked and I enjoyed watching it all unfold. I wondered how it would all go down and I was super engrossed. The characters were likable and I flew through this book. I highly recommend it and I can’t wait to read more from the author because I’m clearly a fan at this point!

Daphne is freshly divorced and while not a fan of baseball, goes to a game and has a few too many beers, eventually heckling one of the players, Chris, with a Winnie the Pooh line…and he ends up crying. She’s now the viral heckler and to smooth things over, she’s hired by the team to interview Chris. But what no one realizes is that she’s also behind the anonymous account named after her nickname Duckie, developing a connection with Chris through their messages. A tricky situation that can easily strike out, proving there *is* crying in baseball.
Some parts of the story I really loved (gave me big A Cinderella Story vibes with the texting/mystery) but I did struggle with some of the disjointedness between the Duckie period and Daphne period of Chris’s life, not to mention the heavy topics (TW: suicide) that were kind of passed over. Would’ve liked to learn more about Chris and his brother and why no one seemed to know about his death.
Thank you to Berkley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.