⭐️ 4/5 🌶 3/5 🎧 4/5
જ⁀➴

This is a romance story that will rip your heart out, stomp on it, then hand you some sticky tape and hope you'll feel ok enough to survive at the end.... and I loved every moment of heartache.

Becca comes from a very small town which is known for its strong religious community, and where the town gossip can destroy someone's reputation. Did I mention that Becca is the preacher's daughter? Eeeek, yep you got that right. Our poor FMC has some seriously heavy religious trauma she has to navigate throughout this entire book and it is a train-wreck.

Since this story is based over a 6 year period, let me break it down for you.

Elliot, or Eli, is from the same tiny town as Becca. Eli left to live out his dream of being a professional basketball player. Which he did so well, right up until he had a major injury ruining his career. He now coaches ball at a college. A college where Becca now attends as a psychology student. When Becca starts her new job as assistant coach, and Eli arrives for work, they immediately recognise each other and things are TENSE.... but not in a good way. You see, Becca has been lifelong friends with Eli's little sister and when he left, Becca had to watch her bestie's life fall apart and now holds a bunch of anger for Eli.

Naturally, they try to avoid each other but soon they become infatuated and fall in love....

~~SPOILERS~~

.... only for Becca to absolutely destroy Eli's heart by abandoning him, all because she was scared he would cheat on her with the team's physiotherapist, sArAh (aggressive eye roll). Now this was so traumatic, for real, because Eli was completely in love with Becca and had no intention to hurt her, and when she left, his soul was burnt. Five years later Eli arrives back in their small town to get married to sArAh, only to find out that Becca is the one who is going to marry them.

My gut turned knowing that the book was only at 40% in, and my girl Becca has already had an entire lifelong emotionally abusive relationship by her parents, threw away her career and dreams, and threw away her true love match all because she was scared of Eli loving sArAh instead of her, only to have Eli arrive back at their small town church with plans to MARRY sArAh.

Like, how the fuck will Eli and Becca come back from this one? Because I would be livid, tortured, emotionally dead, and traumatised.

But, where there is love, there is always a way, and Becca and Eli do find a way back to each other. The only hard part here is that they both have to go through 60% of dealing with their traumatic life events, and growing before they can fully have a trusting relationship again.

But it is a happily ever something.

────୨ৎ────

🎧 The audiobook was performed really well with no noticeable errors.

🎙This was performed in Dual Narration. That is where the female POV chapter is read completely by the female narrator, including reading the male dialogue, and same for the male narrator reading the female dialogue in male POV chapters. It was not distracting at all, and the narrators did an excellent job at portraying different accents and emotions.

────୨ৎ────

Did I cry? YES
Did I fall in love? Twice
Did I enjoy this form of torture? Also yes

────୨ৎ────

♡ Traumatic pasts
♡ Religious trauma
♡ Alcoholic parent
♡ Dead parent
♡ Excommunication
♡ Domestic emotional violence & manipulation
♡ Best friend's older brother
♡ Small town
♡ Basketball player MMC
♡ Meek FMC trying to be independent
♡ Healing needs to happen in order to love (and the healing is longggg)
♡ Complete soul shattering heartbreak
♡ Spicy 🌶🌶🌶
♡ Semi HEA

Honestly, I didn’t love the characters. I finished the book because I was curious how it ended and listened at 2.00 speed. I felt like all the characters were toxic and though some healed I just wasn’t rooting for them.

Love and Basketball twisted with small town romance! Huge thank you to Netgalley, Emily and Bloom Books for the audiobook ARC for this!!!

What to Expect:
⭐ Best friends brother
⭐ Childhood connections
⭐ Sports romance (Basketball)
⭐ Over time story told from youth to college aged young adults to adults
⭐ Definitely a lot of spice not closed door
⭐ Dual POV (His + Hers)
⭐ Family trauma surrounded around death of a parent

My Thoughts:
it is definitely a bit more YA when it starts. Some of that is due to this story taking place over many years. From the main characters meeting when they're younger, then both heading to college and then as they get older. The main character (Becca) is the best friend of second main character (Elliot) sister. They grow up together through childhood, but Elliot is a few years older. While Becca has always had a little crush she never said anything about it because he was "off-limits". When they run in to each other later in life they reconnect on a whole different level. This is where the change happens "a little" from the just general YA to actual young college aged adults.

The story leads to a 3rd act breakup but it isn't an actual breakup and more of just home town requirements pulling Becca back and Elliott doesn't. From there it is a story of family, planning a wedding, family drama and struggles come to the forefront. In the mix of all of that the two find themselves back to each other.

That to say the story is more than just the spice or the anticipation. The characters are well developed and their stories are deeper than just a touch over. For me personally it is what I appreciate the most for a romance story. It's a story of healing, a story of family and also a story of love with sports twisted in here and there.

Overall its a great story but it wasn't my favorite. Things feel a bit chaotic in the story. Times when I am like wait what happened and had to rewind a bit. It took me a long time to complete which is very unusual for me. I did absolutely love the audiobook version of this! The two narrators are amazing! I 100% recommend the audiobook version if you can!

Synopsis:
Elliot Carson left Sugarlake and has never looked back. Revered as the next big thing in basketball, Eli’s a star until an injury ends his career, sending him spiraling with no direction.

But he won’t go home.

He can’t.

Instead, he accepts a coaching gig at Florida Coast University, determined to leave his past behind. But fate has other plans when Becca, his sister’s best friend, shows up as a student and, even worse, becomes the new team manager.

Rebecca Sanger is the preacher’s daughter and the town's disappointment. When she ignores her family’s demands to come home, she’s cut off and needs a job so she can stay enrolled at FCU. She thought she had everything figured out, until Eli Carson—the person she hates more than anything in the world—ends up being her new boss.

Forced together, Becca and Eli’s hatred turns to heat, and they start an affair. But disaster quickly strikes, ripping them apart.

Years pass, and Becca’s back home, under her parent’s thumb, and living a mundane life. When Eli shows up out of the blue with a fiancée in tow, Becca is tasked with planning their wedding.

There’s only one problem.

Becca still loves Eli.

And he hates her.

For the second time in their lives, they’re forced together, and they’ll find out just how thin the line is between hate... and a love that lasts a lifetime.

I received the ALC for this book and was so excited to read this series as I am a huge fan of Emily's Never After Series!

Just a quick note to mention - I haven't read the first of this series as of yet, but even so the book was enjoyable and I didn't get the feeling that I was missing anything.

As for the book itself, I enjoyed Beneath the Stands and have rated it a 3.5/5. The beginning of the book started off strong with both Eli and Becca hating one another (although there was brief mention as to why, there wasn't any real backstory) but it quickly evolved to a relationship of sorts that had a lot of passion between the two. About halfway into the book, they end up breaking up and the rest of the book is more tension filled and had me wanting to yell at the characters.

The story is filled with heavy topics that I wasn't really expecting from the book but the tie in the story was really well done. I related a lot to Becca with family issues and understood why she was so angsty in the beginning of the book but devolved into a "shell of herself" throughout the last half of the book.

The reason I rated the book 3.5 was because I felt that at the beginning of the book, I was getting more enemies-to-lovers feel but without the tension that I craved because it changed so quickly to love. I also felt that there was so much in the last half which left me feeling that the ending itself was rushed in a way. However, I loved the way the heavier topics were dealt with as well as the introduction to the characters in the next book at the end as well. The other thing that I enjoyed was how Eli and Becca took time to heal themselves before getting back into the relationship..

I tried to rate the book here solely for the story itself and not the audiobook, which I would rate a 3. The narrations were good but I would have preferred that it was a duet narration instead because I feel that more of the emotion comes through as opposed to a dual narration.

All in all - good book and looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

I think this just has a bunch of tropes I don't particularly enjoy. Insta lust and second chance being the mains. However, neither were annoying enough to have me dnf. I REALLY didn't like either character for the majority of the book either and that just kind of killed a lot of the enjoyment for me. I found the FMC annoying and inconsistent and the MMC... there was a lot about him that I just kind of hated.

Anyways! She has her audience that will love this! I am just not her biggest fan! I wanted a more relationship development on page and the ending felt rushed despite me thinking "Dang this book is a bit too long"

This series was engaging enough for me to read all the books, BUT this one, like the others was a little uneven, and as always with adult romances, the conflict comes from basic non communication, which can get frustrating. narrators were good!

DNF at 40%. I'm just honestly bored and the FMC is so annoying, I can't take it anymore lol. Read via audio and the FMC was southern so the accent was terribly cheesy. The male narrator's southern accent for the female parts was like the part in The Office where Oscar pretends to be a woman from Savannah. Terrible hahah.

Becca was everything I love in a heroine. She was sassy, quick witted and despite the cards she was dealt being the preachers daughter—coming from a small town where everyone’s judgey eyes were on her, she didn’t feel sorry for herself. Her growth throughout the book was what really stood out to me. I felt torn in my feelings for Eli because I’d read the first book in the series and I knew what he’d lost. But I also felt like some of his actions were a little selfish and unwarranted.

Both Becca and Eli had their individual flaws and made some choices I didn’t necessarily agree with but that’s what I love so much about Emily’s writing. She takes us through all the emotions before giving us that happily ever after.
The only thing that held me back on giving five stars was I really, really, wanted more of an epilogue. I wanted to see more of the good times between Eli and Becca rather than the back and forth.

Who am I ! because book 1 was 2 stars for me. I received the audio ARC of book 1-3 .. and I thought oh nooo after reading book 1 but this book was so different and I don’t even know how/why. I loved Eli and Becca’s character they are likable, genuine and just down to earth. I will say the instalove from enemies to lovers was a punch in the face. Im taking they are doing the tango within 100 pages.. which is great we love that.. but then why make the book 400 pages. That part is why I took off half a star.. serious thought halfway through it was about to end and I opened my app to get ready to pick a new one to discover there was still 10 hours left on the audio and I was only 50% in! But what saved this book is that rekindled relationship/enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers situation we got. If the book shaved 100 pages off this would be a 5 star. But I loved the characters so theres that. Im not JUST a long book hater

Beneath the Stands is book 2 in the Sugarlake Series. This is an enemies to lovers, best friends brother, forbidden romance.

Becca, Alina’s best friend from Beneath the Stars has been going to school at FCU but she knows she does not want to return to Sugarlake when she is done so she ends up with a job with the school basketball team. Alina’s brother, Eli, is at the same school working for the same team as a coach. They shouldn’t want each other, everything says they shouldn’t go near each other but their magnetic pull is too strong and things heat up very quickly between them.

Becca is full of sarcasm, she’s snarky and outspoken. On the outside she appears strong and confident. As we learn more about her and her parents we see how vulnerable she is. She is afraid of ending up like her mother and being unhappy, but while trying not to be like her mom, she still ends up making herself unhappy.

Eli is the dirtiest talker that will make your knees weak. In the first book of the series you probably ended up hating Eli but he quickly became my series favorite. Seeing things from his perspective changes everything about how you see him as a person, as a son, as a brother, as a lover.

The fact that their relationship is forbidden, for many reasons, can’t stop their feelings, in fact it makes it that much more passionate. There were so many steamy scenes between the two and so much of this book was filled with quotes that just burned the page. Eli and Becca are lost souls who are better together than apart but they also don’t always make the best decisions that create problems for them. But when the love that you have for each other is strong and real, you will always find your way back to each other

A forced proximity, best friend's brother, second chance, sports romance.

The narrators Brooke Bloomingdale and Liam DiCosimo portrayed the angst, as well as the blurry lines between resentment and love realistically, in this sweet and spicy story.

If you enjoy a sports romance, give this one a listen.

With thanks to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the advaced listening copy, in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ALC. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I did enjoy this more than the first one.

I was really excited to find out what went down with Eli and Becca and I finally got the answers here. I liked the first of this but the second half did not need to be as messy as it was. There's nothing worse than someone in denial of their feelings moving on to someone else and then hurting both the person they actually love and the stand in.

Eli being all up in his arms about no one caring about him frustrated me a bit because he too lacked in effort. He abandoned his sister in the wake of their mums death and left her dealing with their alcoholic dad and wants to be all woe is me, I got injured and can't play ball anymore? Give me a break.

I also really did not like Becca's parents, especially her mum. They're very much keeping up with the Jones' but its a lie and when Becca calls them out on it they gaslight, threaten and manipulate her. She deserved better than them.

This was such a wonderful listen. I am really loving this series! Highly recommended to all romance fans.

I can’t get past the thick generic southern accent of the narrator to focus on the story. And I’m Appalachian.

Hard pass. I’m sorry. This is one of these books. I can’t handle in audio form.

I’m a sucker for a best friend’s brother romance, and this one had me feeling it all. Eli and Alina’s story was emotional, complicated, and full of that slow-burn tension I love. It’s messy in the best way—full of hurt, love, and growth.

The narrators (Brooke Bloomingdale and Liam DiCosimo) did a great job bringing out the chemistry and all that angsty buildup. Definitely recommend if you’re into second chances and stories that aren’t afraid to dig into the tough stuff.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #BlackstonePublishing for an advance listening copy of #BeneathTheStands. Local basketball star falls for his sister's best friend. Sweet and spicy. Four stars.

This was my first sports romance and I really enjoyed. I am familiar with Emily's past books so I was very excited to listen to this one.
I have an Instagram post scheduled for May 26th. I'll provide that link once it's live.

This story is so sweet and heart breaking.
Narrator did an excellent job. The male voice could have been better.
The “Baby Girl” parts were a little cringy.
Two hearts broken and pulling each other back together works until it doesn’t.
Hunky older brother to her best friend shows up at her college. Washed up and coaching college ball he fell under her spell right away
I wish I would have read SugarLake #1 first. They all tie in together and reading it wasn’t a requirement. I would have liked to read the other couples stories before knowing the outcome.
It’s a great book and I am going to read the others.

I love Brooke as a narrator! But the male who voiced Eli was so hard to listen to....I couldn't. I stopped this book at 19% because the language and the imagery was just too much for me. I normally love the enemies to lovers trope! I had high hopes for this one but, alas, it was just too graphic and the foul language was unnecessary.

Thank you for allowing me to review this upcoming audio. The narrator did a great job keeping you invested in the story. I loved the accents and the dedication to the characters.
The story was entertaining and enjoyable. I was rooting for Eli and Becca the entire time!