Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book!

I found this to be a very fast read, it went by so quickly. While there were some heartwarming moments, I found a lot of the banter too cheesy even for romance books!

Not really sure how I feel about it.

I also found confusing the fact that there’s multiple romance storylines with different characters, so at first I struggled to understand who was the main character!

I gave myself until Chapter 5, but I wasn't really into it. The summary sounded really interesting, but what I read felt a bit dry :/

Love, Love, Love First Love, Second Draft by Becca Kinzer.

It’s such a charming romcom. It’s a clean romance with lovable characters and great back & forth banter.
I found myself pulling for the reconciliation of the main characters, Gracie & Noah.

This story kept me laughing and I found my self not wanting to put it down.

Thank you NetGalley & Tyndale Fiction for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a huge sucker for second chance, so the basic premise of this book was appealing to me. Also, the banter between the main couple, and even between secondary characters, was great!

Unfortunately, I didn't feel like I really got to know the characters at all. Even the main characters felt one-dimensional. I have no idea what they love about each other. Don't know really any personality traits beyond their ice queen vs. trying to win her back dynamic. Maybe the b-plot couple POV could have been cut to make room for character depth?

I wasn't sure about this book at first with it being 1 book with two Romances. But I am so glad I continued as I ended up loving this book!🫶🏻 the main story Is about Gracie and Noah and how they try to fix their marriage. Then we have Gracie's nephew's love story too! I flew through this book! I loved the banter between the main characters and the many humorous scenes❤️ and Buck! I loved Buck! The whole story just had me hooked and I was rooting for Gracie and Noah throughout! It was awesome to see Gracie's nephew get his happy ending too🥰 It was a Really great read! Thank you to Becca and netgalley for this ARC⭐️

3.5⭐️ rounded up!
This second chance romance was a cute read. The banter between all of the characters was cute and witty, although I didn’t love the friends to married aspect for two of the young characters.
I do feel like at times it was confusing whose point of view each chapter was trying to convey, because some of them seemed specific and some seemed mixed. But overall cute story!

Some elements felt a bit too convenient, and the shift in perspectives didn’t flow as effortlessly as in other books.
Thank you Tyndale House and Netgalley for this arc!

Romance writer Gracie has a huge problem. Well, problems may be more accurate. Her deadline is racing her way, but all her ideas are running in the opposite direction. Not to mention the small issue of a fractured pelvis from falling off a horse (sort of), her sister skipping town and skipping out on helping take care of her, and the fact that her ex-husband has taken up residence in her cottage and seems determined to play nurse. Gracie may be down on her luck, but we readers are lucky enough to benefit. I laughed out loud more than once as this sweet rom-com unfolded.

First Love, Second Draft was a quick read for me. I was drawn into the characters' stories and eager to discover what happened next. A few small things caught me by surprise, most notably the heavily Christian theme that popped up in the final few chapters, but I enjoyed the book. (To be clear, I don't mind the religious references or overtones; it simply felt out of place when 90% of the book thus far did not have those same themes.) I appreciate the banter between characters, the fast pace of the lot, and the chance to read this ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Tyndale House.

As much as I love this author, I DNfed it. It felt annoying to consistently hear the negativity in the first chapter and it’s supposed to be a rom-com.

OK girl I actually really enjoyed reading this.

We’ve got this ultra fun set-up with our lovely main characters Gracie and Noah, in their early 40s, divorced, meeting a bump in their careers, within baseball and as a romance writer. He's still in love with her! She's hurt because he chose his career over her time and again.

We’ve got a sideline story between high school besties who grew distant. I won’t say more but they are indeed sweet, albeit silly (in a lovingly, endearing way!).

Light-hearted and fun story that just makes for an easy enjoyable read. I got behind the characters and even got attached Gracie’s dad – we stan Buck!

While the storyline has its flaws, it’s also so utterly human which I can appreciate, although do we really need another romance based on miscommunication? Otherwise, you’re in for a treat of some great banter and sweet and humorous scenes!

Thank you to Tyndale House Publishers and NetGalley for providing me with the eARC and the opportunity to read and provide an honest review!

3.75 stars ✨


“ ‘If one of you even thinks about fluffing this pillow again, there will be blood. Now leave. Both of you.’ [Gracie said.] ”


Take me out to the ball game. 🎶 Calling all sports romance and non-spice second chance lovers! ⚾️

This story is wholesome, and the humor is witty and ridiculously wonderful. Gracie, oh, I wanted to give her a hug but I’m sure she’d decline the hug because she suffered an injury. But no injury can stop writer deadlines. She must finish her manuscript for her last novel in a series and nothing is popping in her imagination. I can relate to her (being a writer) and wanting to write when something isn’t clicking or doesn’t feel right with the plot.

Then her ex-husband, baseball player Noah shows up to help her during her recovery. He tries and tries, and she deflects and deflects. The pacing for this novel was great. I didn’t feel like the characters rushed to win each other back. Time in the story elapsed given the weight to the heavy and emotional decisions of the past and soon present.

There’s one aspect, and this is a personal element, of the story I wanted less was the nephew’s love life. Matt is amazing. He helped get Noah back into his Aunt Gracie’s life. I was hoping he’d have a happy ending, I personally wanted to focus on Noah and Gracie because I was interested in their relationship more.

I wanted to share Matt is a third main character. The audience gets a close third-point of view with him. He gets his own plot. I didn’t know until I started to read because he’s mentioned once in the summary.

Thank you Becca for writing an amazing story! In the author’s note, Becca said, “With Jesus, there’s always reason to hope.” You are right. There is always a reason to hope. I believe that describes the heart of this story. Thank you!



Tyndale Publisher House provided me with a complimentary copy of this ARC. The release date is Tuesday, April 15th, 2025. Check out your local library or you can get it at your favorite local bookstore. 😊

DNF

I felt like there were too many POVs
I wasn’t a fan of the skirting around the past
Like just tell me why things went wrong and maybe I could give this second chance romance a shot

"First Love, Second Draft" is really two books in one. I loved Becca Kinzer's first two books so much but this one left me wishing she had made two novels, with this one concentrating on Gracie and Noah and the other featuring her nephew Matt and his love interest Rachel, rather than combining the two stories. In this book you see 3 perspectives - Gracie, Noah and Matt's. I could see what she was doing, but just wish she had developed each story more in the separate novels and added Christian faith to the stories, especially at the ending. I feel that could have added so much richness to the story since without the faith, the story to me fell flat.

What I liked:
* Witty Banter
* Gracie's father
* Strong family ties on Gracie's side
* Noah's backstory and how he grew from his experiences
* Writer + Athlete Romance

I want to encourage the author to keep writing because I loved her first two books so much and feel she has such a fun storytelling style. I also want to thank the publisher for an opportunity to read an ARC of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
*

I’m a hard sell on romantic comedy. By which I mean, I love reading it, but usually consider it a win if it’s mildly amusing. This isn’t a jab at rom com authors at all. I have an oddball sense of humor that doesn’t line up with what a lot of other people consider funny.

Becca Kinzer’s novels? Are funny.

Not in a slapstick sort of way, nor in the dying-of-embarrassment sort of way. Just great interior dialogue and situations that get a tiny bit (or a large bit) out of control.

First off, I’m not keen on sports novels. Noah is a famous baseball star. While that’s important to the story, sports scenes are thankfully a very minor part of the story.

Second, my experience as an independent author of Christian romance often causes eye rolls when I read about author characters. They so often are a one-hit wonder! But Gracie’s big sales are in the past (incidentally achieved when married to a baseball player and writing baseball romance) and now she is struggling in a major way.

Enter Noah, who not only takes care of her after her accident but steps back into his former role as muse and idea-bouncer, though Gracie doesn’t want him for those roles or any other. He picks up a scene she wrote and said the couple couldn’t kiss in that position seated on the steps. Of course, she isn’t willing to test it with him, but he calls on Gracie’s nephew and his would-be girlfriend to prove to Gracie that what she wrote is impossible.

This was by far the funniest scene in the story and it definitely got some verbal laughs from me, not just a smirk or a quiet snicker! The dialogue as well as the interior monologue as well as the couple’s attempts to act out Gracie’s scene were, frankly, hilarious.

As post-divorce romances go, this one was fairly believable as readers come to understand the details of Gracie and Noah’s marriage and downfall. Highly recommend this novel.

I enjoyed this rather ridiculous rom-com. Two characters who are so bad at communicating that they divorce get their "second chance" when she is injured and he signs up to be her caretaker. Add in a mess of a sister, a meddling nephew, and an author with writers block and you have quite a romp.

Was this an emotionally deep story? No. Were there parts that really seemed unnecessary? Absolutely. But was it also lighthearted and fun? Yes!

It was nice to see the MMC be the one who is better at communicating and the one who is trying to fix things. Gracie has so many walls up that she doesn't always feel like a 3 dimensional character. Forcing them to write Noah's memoir was far-fetched, but it was an interesting way to get their backstory.

I enjoyed this one.

This sweet second chance sports romance is such a fun read! We follow Gracie, a romance writer, while she has to work with her ex-husband, Noah (who happens to also be a famous baseball player).

This book had a bit of a slow start for me and it took me a minute to get into but I am really so glad I stuck with it! I loved that we got 2 second Chance romances in one book!! Both of the storylines were excellent but I have such a soft spot for marriage reconciliation- Gracie and Noah’s story was so beautiful and redemptive and getting to see her turn back to God was a full circle moment and the highlight of the story for me. This was my first book by Becca but definitely not my last!

A beautiful story about love, forgiveness, redemption and of course coming back to God.

Thankyou net galley for the e-arc read, I powered through this book and did reallyenjoy it!

I had read previous reviews about the religious aspect to the book and how that had maybe put them off it a little or the opposite and that they wanted more religious bits in the story.

To each their own, I did like this fluffy romance read, the miscommunication trope is also something that divides people but I always try to read a book with an open mind, thinking of the likability of characters and flow of a story/plot which can say I did enjoy 🙂

This is not the easiest review to write. On one hand, there were some good tropes in this book - forced proximity and second chance romance. On the other hand, miscommunication (or no communication) drives me up a wall. The other elephant in the room I want to address is that this is a Christian book. Before you come at me with pitchforks, I am actually sad that aspect wasn’t more prevalent. I think many of the heavy topics would’ve done well through a lens of religion and hope. It felt like religion was really only mentioned at the very end of the book and I was a little removed from the characters by then. The idea is great - an author who is struggling for many reasons (physical and mental) and is coming dangerously close to missing her deadline. Enter a professional baseball player ex-husband who clearly still loves his ex-wife and is desperate to get her back. I think the reason I struggled at times with this one was because lack of communication killed their marriage, and it felt like they learned nothing in the 5 years apart and hadn’t really talked about, let alone resolved, those issues by the end of the story. On a more basic level, the book jumped around a lot and I am not sure the nephew’s POV was needed to make this a good story. I see some really good potential here and think this might be an option for the right person. I think it just missed the mark for me overall.

Because I have only rated this 3 stars, I am going to wait to share my review until after release day to give the author (who I do think had a great idea) the chance to not have my review stop people from trying it!

I sped through this book and thought it was fun, but the more I thought about it, the more issues I had with the plot and characters. I'll start with the things I liked about the book:

Pros:
- I love the Mariners, and the baseball parts were great.
- I liked how they talked about romance writing and even acted out logistics of unrealistic scenes in a humorous way.
- I enjoy forced proximity, and this was full of that!
- I also loved the grandpa character, Buck, and was very emotional at the end of the book. I wish there was more of him.

Cons:
- It got weirdly religious at the end, all at once, which I wasn't expecting. But I also kind of was expecting it with how fast all the characters got married.
- It also shifted perspectives in a choppy way, including a secondary romance for Gracie's nephew, Matthew, which I thought was strange and unnecessary to Gracie and Noah's story - maybe to appeal to younger readers? Not sure what the purpose was. Rachel was insuffrable and seemed extremely childlike to me.
- Mona as a character was a horrible sister. Family dynamics in this book felt off to me.
- There was the fact that Gracie was married to a baseball pitcher whose life was baseball. . .but she hates baseball, but also wrote a successful series about baseball?
- I could not wrap my head around the fact that they were married 20 years and didn't know about each other's childhoods?? That is so strange.
- I could sympathize with both Gracie and Noah thru the story, but also was angry at them about how they acted throughout the story. If Noah really wanted Gracie, why did he wait 5 years after their divorce? What were they both doing during that time? It was a weird timeline that just didn't make sense to me.
- There were so many weird vocabulary choices and pop culture references that really dated the characters and the book. I did not understand most of the actors/singer references and I am 30.
- The epilogue was so choppy and weird, almost like a dialogue but also like she was writing...something? I was like, if this is part of Noah's memoir, the memoir would be so bad.

It was a quick palate cleanser and good to read on my flights while I was bored. Would I recommend it to others? No. 2.5 stars.