This was okay. Light and easy to read, but nothing that really stayed with me. Endy was sweet but I don't know, she didn't stuck with me. Sebastian had potential, but I didn’t feel the connection between him and Endy. The book kept telling me they had chemistry, but I wasn’t really seeing it. They barely talked for a good part of the story, and when they did, it didn’t feel deep. It was fine for a quick read. Thank you so much to the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book early. I’m sharing my thoughts voluntarily and with genuine appreciation

Endy, our heroine, felt overly childlike and whimsical. Her reactions — like giggling when a car speeds up or bouncing with excitement — gave off strong “Disney princess meets Mary Poppins” vibes. While she clearly cares for the kids she teaches in her pickleball class, scenes like one where Canadian geese fly overhead and a child grabs her hand in wonder felt overly sentimental and a bit much.

Sebastian, the love interest, doesn’t really interact with Endy until nearly 20% into the book, despite them being in the same orbit multiple times. Instead of building chemistry through meaningful conversation or shared moments, the story leans heavily on telling us they’re falling for each other — not showing it. I also found it repetitive how the book kept reintroducing who Sebastian was each time he appeared.

If you enjoy light, whimsical romances with a strong fairytale feel and don’t mind a slower pace or more surface-level emotional depth, this might work for you. But personally, I found the tone overly saccharine and the romance lacking in genuine spark.

my rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

this was a cute and playful sports romance (and as a sports romance enthusiast, I will always read one that’s centered around pickleball!). Sebastian and Endy both had a ton of potential, but definitely found myself wishing for a little more depth/character development—a lot less insta-love vibes. we’re told they have insane chemistry, but we don’t really get that in the dialogue or scenes with the two of them. all in all though, this is a perfect quick read if you’re looking for something light and breezy.

thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and Rebecca Jasmine for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

This was a cute book.
It was playful but felt a bit like an immature insta-love trope.
Sebastian and Endy are adorable main characters. I think they could use some further development, but they were enjoyable.
This is a quick and easy beach read for the summer. It isn't too serious, nothing that makes your mind work too hard, so a vacation book, in my opinion.
The book feels young as far as maturity. I am a bit of a connisseur of sports romance books, I LOVE them, but because of the setting and unrealistic nature of the drama, it just felt a bit immature for the adult reader.
Due to the need for further character development, it was a little difficult to feel that connection to the characters at times. The plot also tells the reader the chemistry between our two MCs is off the charts, but I really didn't see that play out on the pages. It felt more like the reader is just sort of told that, and expected to buy it without seeing the rationale. I am a nurse, so I love rationale in a book.
I think that I learned about Pickleball, but the romance fell a flat for me.
I do think that this book has such potential but needs some work.
Thank you so much to NetGalley, the publisher, and Rebecca Jasmine for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
I can't wait to see how Rebecca continues to develop as an author.
Happy Reading!

What started with promise quickly spiralled into disappointment. A romance novel set in the world of pickleball sounded charmingly offbeat—unique enough to stand out from the sea of sports romances. Unfortunately, the execution fell flat. What could have been a fun, character-driven story instead turned into a frustrating read with little emotional payoff.

The central romance between Endy and Sebastian never takes off. There's barely any meaningful interaction before the book pushes them into a supposed love story. Their chemistry is nonexistent, their conversations feel superficial, and we’re constantly told they’re connecting without ever seeing it happen. It feels manufactured and rushed, lacking the kind of development that makes fictional relationships feel earned.

Narratively, the book struggles to find its footing. The pacing is all over the place—some scenes are unnecessarily drawn out while others, especially key emotional beats, are glossed over or skipped entirely. Flashbacks interrupt the flow without adding much value, and transitions between scenes are jarring enough to leave you confused about what just happened. Dialogue often comes across as stilted or unnatural, making the characters harder to connect with.

The tone tries so hard to be upbeat and whimsical that it ends up feeling hollow. If you're a fan of instant love, overly cutesy interactions, and don’t mind being repeatedly reminded of plot points you've already grasped, you might enjoy this as an easy, surface-level read.

I really liked the characters in this book. Endy was adventurous, determined, and hardworking! I appreciated that she would whatever she could to help others! I also loved that she was involved in the community and set up programs to help the elderly and children! I’m not as sold on Sebastian. I felt like his character was underdeveloped and was mainly there to be a love interest. He does have a backstory that explains his actions, but I think it could have been developed more.

My favorite characters were them side characters! They were charismatic, charming, and funny. Any time the older members of the country club showed up I was laughing! I also loved the found family aspect of the book. The club members were very supportive and protective of Endy. They would do anything to help her be successful!

I had two biggest issues with this book. The first was the pacing. At times it felt rushed, while other times it felt drawn out. I also felt that the story was disjointed at times. There many flashbacks that were long and sometimes felt out of the place. It also seemed to jump from one scene to the next without a transition.

My second issue was the instant love. I’m not really sure why Endy and Sebastian were attracted to each other and they had little chemistry. They only had a few interactions and none of them had a deep emotional connection. I felt like their attraction was surface level.

Have I heard of Pickleball before? No. Did I still feel intrigued by the title of this book to read it? Yes! What pulled me in the most was that it feels like it's going to be different than your average sports romances because it's about a sport that hasn't really been done before in a romance, at least to my knowledge. From the sport side of things, it was pretty interesting and at least now I can say I've heard of Pickleball. The romance side of things though, fell flat for me.

Endy was very childlike to me. She descended into a "fit of giggles" because our MMC Sebastian sped up the car. She jumps up and down in her seat with excitement and she seems very animated in the way she speaks. It's almost like Endy is giving "Disney princess meets Mary Poppins" vibes. She cares about the kids at her Pickleball class she instructs and there was even a scene where these Canadian Geese fly in arrow formation above their heads and all the kids stare in wonder and amazement. One of the children even grabs Endy's hand in silence to watch the sky, and oh, isn't life so serene and wonderful! It's a bit much for me.

Sebastian is our love interest, and I think what wasn't hitting for me is that Endy and Sebastian don't even interact and actually converse with each other until nearly 20% into the book, yet there are four seperate occassions where they are aware of each other's presence and watch each other from a distance. We also keep having Endy (or the author I guess in this case) constantly explaining who Sebastian is everytime he's on page. Like yes, I get it, he's the guy who retreived a dog and played tennis earlier. Stop telling me. Their relationship and interactions were a lot of telling instead of showing, and I didn't actually see the chemistry between them and I just had to believe they were in love instead.

If you like insta-love and just cutsey beach read vibes, then I think you'll enjoy it enough, but overall, it wasn't my cup of tea.

DNF @40%
This book was not for me, too much time and effort was put into the sport and the friendships and barely any on the actual romance. I felt no attraction, no romantic tension and the writing felt very rushed.
The dialogs felt robotic and forced up to where I stopped reading.
This was feeling more like a sport documentary than a sport romance.
Why put a guide on how to play the sport at the begining of the book if you’re just going to repeat and explain the rules all over again in the book.

Endy Andrews, una joven apasionada por el deporte y dedicada al crecimiento del pickleball en un exclusivo club de campo de California. Con una energía contagiosa y un gran corazón, Endy no solo busca reconstruir su vida tras una ruptura amorosa, sino también ofrecer nuevas oportunidades a niños y jóvenes mediante un innovador programa juvenil llamado Picklers.

La trama se enfoca en su día a día entre entrenamientos, dinámicas sociales en el club y una creciente tensión entre los aficionados al tenis y los del pickleball, lo que añade una capa interesante al conflicto general. Pero el eje emocional de la novela gira en torno a la relación entre Endy y Sebastian Hall, un carismático tenista con quien inicia una conexión inesperada. Su historia de amor avanza con encuentros casuales, momentos tiernos y algunas complicaciones que reflejan las inseguridades y heridas que ambos arrastran.



Aunque la novela tiene mucho potencial, no terminó de convencerme. La mayoría de los capítulos se sienten incompletos. Además, me decepcionó que Sebastian tardara tanto en dejarle claro a Sloan que lo dejara en paz. La pobre Endy tuvo que soportar demasiadas situaciones incómodas: cenas en grupo donde estaba ella, llamadas, mensajes a todas horas... En resumen, no le dio su lugar como merecía, y eso no me gustó.


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

Thank you to NetGalley, Rebecca Jasmine, and the publishers in exchange of an advanced reader copy for a honest review.

Overall I thought this was a cute playful romance. Felt more insta-lovey though to me so if you’re into that you’ll definitely like this. The dialogue could have been expanded between both Sebastian and Endy. I just felt like as the reader you heard more about their romance versus actually seeing it play out in the plot. Definitely could see someone reading this on the beach for a nice easy romance read. I personally would see this as a palette cleanser book.

Good light read with not too heavy of a plot with humor sprinkled in.

I DNFed this book at 27%, however I did have several key areas where I felt as though specific aspects would be worth sharing.

This book reminds me a bit of a soap opera, where everything is very overly dramatized and none of the problems are grounded in any sort of reality shared by the majority of the human population. One of these things being the massive rivalry and drama between tennis and pickleball, set against the backdrop of a country club. While I'm sure there might be some contention between players of the sports, the portrayal of it felt very inauthentic and more like a cheesy movie villain.

Sports romances - I am not an athlete or a huge fan of sports IRL. Generally I watch what I can of the olympics every 2 years, and that's my sports quota. I have found a real appreciation for and enjoyment of sports romances. All that to say, I'm not generally super familiar when with the rules/backgrounds/social norms surrounding a given sport, but have not run into that being an issue when reading previous sport romances. This had a several page guide upfront going into a lot of the details of pickleball, which I don't think should be required to read a sports romance. I did read it though, and still found myself so confused the majority of the time any sort of plays were being described (Dink word count: 31). On the flip side, it felt as though some things were being into us like a dead horse, such as the extreme overuse of the word 'pickleball', which appears 227 times in the book. At 224 pages, that's averaging just over once per page. Things like having it prefixed in front of 'court' or 'paddle' so many times, even when we could have easily used the context clues to know it was a pickleball paddle without the everpresent reminder.

Chemistry/characters - A lot of telling of the chemistry rather than showing it. They had a date, we got a few lines of dialogue, are told the date lasted several hours longer, and then the next day she's on the verge of falling in love. I want to feel a connection to and between the characters, please! I can't do that if we don't get hardly any time with them together.

About 25% of the way through the book, we get a flashback to when Endy and her best friend originally met back in college, and this scene was ultimately the point where I decided to DNF. Up until now, I felt ok to keep reading it as a light popcorn read despite my other critiques. Endy and Maria met at the University of Montana, where Maria ended up at apparently entirely on accident, having only applied to one school, meant to be the University of Miami, but apparently got the "U of M" mixed up and applied for Montana instead of Miami. This was so absurdly unbelievable that it entirely took me out of the book, because there if you know you want to go to Florida, there is absolutely no way you could go through the whole application process for a school without realizing it is in another state across the country.

If you can suspend disbelief for the things I've called out, you might enjoy this book - I didn't have any major issues with the story for as far as I made it through.

Thanks to the author, Greenleaf Book Group and NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book!

This was a very cute, fun read. I was giggling and smiling through the book. I loved Maria and Paco! I really liked how we knew the fmc relationship hang up right away and got to see how that played out for them.

Love that this author took a modern trending sport and made it her own when it came to a love story. The book is cute and charming!

Thank you netgalley for this e-arc, this book is a quick and easy read. However I personally didn’t feel the chemistry between the two characters and found it to be extremely rushed almost insta lovey. The humour in this book was good and I did find myself laughing at times. This is a light read, without a heavy plot, just a palette cleanser book, whilst this isn’t my chosen genre overall it was still enjoyable.

3.5 ⭐ rounded up.

Do not come for me when I say this - but this book spoke sooo much about pickleball. Is it really that big a deal? Is there really anyone who takes this game so seriously (like a pickleball/tennis rivalry seems extreme).

Anyway, a very cute and easygoing story. Both Sebastian and Endy were sweet characters, although I'm really not sure if they knew enough about each other to fall in love.

Some small things:
1. I found this a bit of a boring way to describe the MMC: "...to find the most gorgeous guy she'd ever seen towering above her." - come on! I want to know why he's gorgeous. Paint me a word picture.
2. Sebastian was a terrible communicator - why were you hanging out so much with Sloane??
3. I know Sloane was supposed to be the villain, but I feel like she had so much going for her, that I wish she was the main character. Can we get her book??

Looking forward to reading Maria's story - I feel like this will cement the story more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. All views are my own.

This book is perfect for anyone who’s looking for a feel-good read that will leave you smiling. It’s charming, uplifting, and packed with that cozy small-town charm and the thrill of finding love when you least expect it.