Brooke Murphy, es una escritora de novelas románticas que atraviesa un bloqueo creativo devastador tras ser fantasmeada por el hombre del que empezaba a enamorarse. Presionada por una fecha de entrega y motivada por su mejor amiga, Meredith, Brooke adopta la filosofía de decir “sí” a nuevas experiencias como forma de desbloquear su mente… y su corazón.

Su vida da un giro cuando un incidente escatológico con un perro callejero la lleva a conocer a Adam, un encantador paseador de perros, y poco después a Kai, un carismático jugador de pickleball que se convierte en su nueva obsesión romántica. En medio de intentos desastrosos por destacar en la cancha, Brooke también cruza caminos con Owen, un instructor poco convencional pero auténtico que la ayuda a entrenar.




La razón de mi calificación fue por el que me desespero Brooke, y lastimó a Owen. Me alegre de lo que él hizo en los capítulos finales (no fue nada malo y no involucra a otro, simplemente se dio su lugar).




Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest

3 ⭐️! Pick Me follows an author looking for her muse to help shake off her writers block. And how exactly will she find this muse? Through pickle ball obviously. The characters are fun! The concept is new and different! However… while this book had the potential to be great but there was just so much happening at once. She’s a cowboy romance ghostwriter, wanna-be romantasy author, who plays pickleball to impress one guy, while being coached by another guy who is clearly into her and who she fake dates in order to make their respective exes jealous, and her brother is a famous soccer player. Meanwhile he developed an app so he’s super rich but it’s only touched on for like two sentences, played college tennis, teaches pickleball, wants to write a book and has major trust issues from his last love triangle situation. The characters are weirdly somewhat unrealistically complex… it’s all just so much. If you love heavy microtroping and characters with a lot of stuff going on, you’ll love this. It was just not my style. The book is only 350 something pages and somehow manages to fit all this in but not very well … so much of it felt unnecessary and I wish the author would’ve picked less random things and focused in on a few instead. That being said, the concept and idea behind the book is fun and I think I would’ve loved it so much more if there was a little less going on. Would maybe recommend it as a quick fun palette cleanser in between series. The ending was fun and felt like a good wrap up but was a bit rushed

Lately I’ve been serendipitously (?) picking up books featuring writers writing and I haven’t gone wrong yet! This book continues the trend with a delightful, cozy, humorous, romantic, pickleball-fueled love story. I originally grabbed this from NetGalley precisely because it was pickleball romance and I was intrigued about how that would work lol. But it definitely worked for me. Owen and Brooke had that wonderful friends to lovers chemistry that flowed seamlessly and the supporting cast were all a delight in their own right. I loved how confident Brooke was in facing challenges but still with realistic vulnerability. Victoria Schade is a new to me author and I’ll be heading over to grab her backlist as soon as I’m done with this review. Pick Me was exactly what I needed and left me smiling and sniffling at the same time. Can’t wait to see what she writes next!

I am so glad I branched out and gave this one a try! The chemistry was perfect and so was the banter! 10/10 all around

Thank you so much NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for this ARC!

The two main characters had good chemistry and it was well written. I genuinely enjoyed their backstory and it was an engaging and fun story to read. Highly would recommend this to anyone who enjoys romance.

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was an engaging read! I enjoyed the plot and would read it again.

I genuinely enjoyed this book. The world building was great and so were the characters. The author did a wonderful job with each character’s back story, allowing you to understand why they are the way they are.

Wow the chemistry these two had was amazing!
This was a random book I found and I’m so glad I was approved for an early copy.
I was invested in Brooke from the very first page. She’s smart, funny and honest. And then there’s Owen! He was charming and a bit mysterious.
There were no bad characters in this book. I adored all of them and their relationships to one another.
And of course I have to give Marti a quick mention!
It had a perfect balance of pickleball scenes. It didn’t over power the story just added to it.
I will be on the lookout for more books by this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc for my honest review!

A delightful and charming romcom!

I picked this book up because the cover is gorgeous & the premise sounded cute. Reminded me a bit of Tessa Bailey's Fangirl Down which I loved. I'm glad to report I ended up really adoring this.

Brooke and Owen steal the show as an opposites attract pairing. Their interactions were so fun, especially during the lessons. Their dynamic is the perfect balance of humor and heart. I liked their romance a lot. These two definitely had me giggling and kicking my feet. Owen is a dream for lovers of grumpy heroes.

The character development is well written too. Brooke's self discovery journey felt authentic and made her relatable. Her character shows a lot of growth by the novel's end.

Schade's writing is witty and addictive. I had a difficult time putting Pick Me down!

Highly recommend, especially if you enjoy sports romance and opposites attract.

A heartwarming romance with charming characters and just the right amount of emotional depth. Overall a great read and recommend.

This was a quick and fun read! I was very unfamiliar with Pickleball and after reading this book, I think I’ll have to give it a try!

Brooke is a ghost-writer of cowboy romances (my favorite!) and has lost her inspiration after a breakup. To get her out of her apartment, her roommate, Meredith, tells her to join her at the pickleball club. Brooke is bad and catches the eye of the resident coach, Owen. Brooke’s eye is caught by his student Kai. She decides he is her new muse! She starts up pickle ball lessons with Owen in hopes to get better and see Kai at the club more often. As the lessons go on, her feelings begin to change about Owen but she can’t seem to give up her muse Kai.

I enjoyed this book and would rate it 3.5 stars! It was a quick read, had some spelling errors, learned a lot about pickleball, and I think the author did a great job of showing the differences in conversation between Brooke and Owen and Kai.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Voyage for this ARC!💕🫶🏼

4.3! The humor was so good in this, I found myself laughing out loud so many times. The encouragement given by all of the characters was so comforting to read. The main characters chemistry was off the charts! I did think the idea of a guy/vs the actual guy should have been realized a little sooner since the FMC is very intelligent, but we got there in the end! I would have loved more from the POV after the HEA, just job wise for her and how she got into teaching classes but I felt the ended wrapped up nicely where it did. Also, not for nothing but this book made me want to try pickleball

Pick Me was such a delightful surprise. I was initially drawn in by the beautiful cover art, but I stayed for the laugh out loud moments. It’s been a long time since the "com" in rom-com actually had me kicking my feet with joy, and Pick Me absolutely delivered. It captures everything I love in a romance: charm, chaos, and a heroine you can’t help but root for, even when you don’t always agree with her choices.

Brooke Murphy is a character who walks the fine line between being a classic “pick me” girl and a clever mastermind, as Taylor Swift might say. She’s funny, charismatic, and delightfully chaotic. Though she's a writer, she often struggles to find the right words in real life, which creates a touching and relatable contradiction. Her journey of self-discovery was both inspiring and heartwarming.

The inclusion of pickleball and the ghostwriter subplot added unexpected depth. These elements weren’t just quirky details; they were thoughtfully woven into the story. I found myself genuinely interested and even learning something new. I’m honestly considering buying a cheap paddle just to give it a try. The narrative was rich in detail without ever feeling bogged down, and each subplot enhanced the overall story.

The relationships felt genuine and well earned. The romance was especially impactful, exploring themes of expectation versus reality and reminding us not to judge a book by its cover, both literally and metaphorically. Sometimes we get so caught up in our own idealized visions of love that we fail to see what's right in front of us. Pick Me is a charming, thoughtful, and laugh out loud funny read that has earned a permanent spot on my “need a good laugh” reading list.

This was my first Netgalley acquisition and I couldn’t be happier .

4.5 ✨ for Brooke and Owen . Not gonna lie, at first B annoyed the hell out of me with her fantasy muse and her dad jokes . It was painful to see how everything she ever wanted was in front of her and she didn’t even notice because she was pinning after a guy she didn’t even knew . Owen on the other hand was perfect . I didn’t like that she almost knew nothing about him, but also was obsessed with the way the supported each other .

“I’ll wait for you as long as it takes” ❤️

This book was so fun to read! Sexy and sweet, hot and cool, it exactly fit the light yet heartfelt feel that I was looking for in a book. I ultimately ship Owen and Brooke and I found that I loved how the story developed over the plot points in the book. Don’t underestimate this romance, it was worth every second! And I love that pickleball was explored too! It made the book so fun!

This was a really cute read! 4.5/5 round up (which I rarely do)

As someone who dislikes miscommunication tropes and does not care for slow burns, I was delighted how the author goes about the former trope. Conflicts were not dragged out too long, and the plot building was done pretty well!

As for this being a slow burn, it had a bit of spice but maybe 1/5 to 1.5/5 spice level? But I still enjoyed the dynamics between the two MCs. I understand that the FMC was not looking for literary inspiration in the right places but it just added to the tension. At the end of the day FMC was trying to pay bills and was desperate to get her writing done so can we blame her?

I was able to breeze through this and found myself kicking my feet giddily. I think the beginning is just the part I cringed a bit but once the plot started to unravel this became a really enjoyable read. This book is not something I would typically grab but I’m glad I found the plot details interesting enough to read this, I had a lot of fun doing so!

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for this eARC!

It was kind of hard for me to decide whether I liked this book because for most of it, I really disliked the female main character, but I also think that was kind of the point??? So I think in the end I liked it??

Girly pop is looking in all the wrong places for literary inspiration, chasing down the wrong man, or maybe just the idea of a man, when someone who actually liked her was right in front of her face the whole time. Someone who was kind and caring and thoughtful and wonderful and lovely and sexy and funny, and I could go on and on and on about a hot Pickleball coach Owen. I wanted to SCREAM at her. But again, I think it was the point of the book to have a sort of flipped version of the man typically growling for the woman’s forgiveness??? And have her mess up??? But if that’s the case, I don’t really feel like the female main character graveled enough with how annoyingly she navigated the situation with Owen and the guy she so desperately wanted to be her muse. Especially knowing Owen was in a previous love triangle that ended POORLY.

but anyway, the book was written well and I don’t really have any complaints other than that I just felt the FMC needed to be less messy but who among us isn’t a little messy sometimes? Who am I to judge? I just think she needed to grovel more 😂

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the advance copy to review!

There’s plenty of nice stuff here: an interesting setting (I definitely learned a lot about pickleball), a very appealing love interest, breezy writing, a zippiness to all of it, incredibly easy to read … and yet.

The problem is Brooke, who is delusional and blinkered in a way that’s never appropriately or satisfyingly engaged with. A romance book author who has terrible taste in men and projects incredibly complicated fantasies on random himbos? That’s a great idea for a book, but one that Schade is disinclined to investigate, leaving us with a “heroine” who is hard to root for and a HEA that makes us genuinely worried for the lovely Owen. A whiff!

As someone completely new to the world of Pickleball, I was surprised by how much I loved this book—I tore through it in a single day!

Pick Me centers on Brooke, a romance author stuck in a creative rut. In an attempt to reignite her inspiration, she reluctantly joins her best friend for a game of pickleball—even though she claims to have zero athletic ability. That’s where she meets Kai, a passionate player who instantly sparks her imagination. Determined to impress him, Brooke enlists the help of his coach, Owen, to teach her the game. But as their coach-student relationship deepens, Brooke begins to question what (and who) she really wants.

Brooke’s path to finding her muse is full of surprises, self-discovery, and heartfelt moments. This is a story about more than just romance—it’s about growth, connection, and stepping outside your comfort zone.

Pick Me is a charming and refreshing romance with a sporty twist. Highly recommended!

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book.

3.5 - the story started off really interesting to me but I slowly lost interest. I think the premise was promising and was overall an easy book to read. I would read another book by this author