Thank you to Devney Perry and her team for the advance reader copy of Coach, a single dad, sports romance standalone.
I have been excited about this Devney Perry passion project since she started talking about it a few years ago. She has never tackled a sports romance (see what I did there, haha) and I was looking forward to her putting her Devney spin on it. This was a great take on a coach romance, in a college setting rather than a professional team. So you get the best of both worlds a forbidden workplace romance and small college-town vibes.
I am a Devney Perry review team member, but I remain honest and genuine in my reviews.
A single dad, sports romance from Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author, Devney Perry.
Football star. Single dad. And once, a long time ago, mine.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade forgetting Ford Ellis. If he had just stayed away from Montana, I might have erased the memory of his striking blue eyes and rugged smile forever. Avoiding him was easy when the only place I saw his face was on ESPN—and a remote control could fix that problem.
Except my boss just hired Ford as the new head coach for the Treasure State Wildcats. Not only will I be stuck watching him on the sidelines this season, but avoiding him will be impossible now that we’re working together.
Maybe I haven’t forgotten Ford. Maybe I still dream about what we might have been. Maybe he hasn’t forgotten me either.
Except those maybes won’t change the fact that we were never meant to be. Maybe he was mine once. But as of today, the only thing I’ll be calling Ford Ellis is Coach.
Check out my more detailed thoughts below…
- Characters: Our leads are Millie and Ford. I loved them both, they are definitely prime examples of Devney protagonists at their best. Ford is sweet, charming, and a wonderful Dad. Readers will fawn over how he prioritizes his daughter Joey. I loved his determination in everything from fatherhood, work, sport, and re-approaching Millie. I also liked having a sports romance with the heroine connected to the sports world, as authors rarely draw these connections. Millie is the school’s athletic director, and what I did enjoy stemming from that was a subplot of her fighting for agency in a male-dominated field. The other character I liked was Joey, I wished we could have seen more of her. The nature of this book is that key scenes take place at the workplace which just means less kiddo time.
- Setting: This story is set at a university in Montana, and well of course it is because Devney is the queen of Montana stories. Devney has said this will become a series of coach stories but all she has done is made me crave a series of college romances from her. I loved the insights you can glean from all the side characters on the football team.
- Pacing: Devney’s books are such a good length, not too slow or not too fast. The story opens with one chapter in the past, and the rest is in the present. Which means you learn about their history in the present timeline.
- Romance: This book is a bit of a slow burn, but with a ton of history. One of my favourites parts of the story was constructing this couple was the tension she wrote into every kiss. It made it so that I knew it would be magical once they collided. Being two adults that are working at a university sports program, they really channelled their inner horny college kid and made up for the lost time. There was a few hot scenes but too much fade to black for my liking. I also found the relationship pacing occurred a bit fast, I know they have a history but they still moved into the serious stage quite quickly.
Coach receives four out of five stars.
You can pick up the story below…
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Thank you again to Devney and her team for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
