I received an arc for my honest. Catie and Danny have been frenemies since their teens. An unexpected event makes them have to pretend to date. The dating does stay fake for long.

Danny and Catie are the star of this beautiful last Hard Play book.

“She loves you like the sun,” he’d said once in an awed whisper. “Such a love… It makes me believe in the stories of happy ever after.”

What a heartwarming sweet and hilarious story.

Since the first book in this series this family has held my attention and I just wanted more. So different from any of her other series but the writing style is still superb.

I’m usually not a big sports romance fan but this one was fantastic.

Will she let her old wounds hold her back …

What a sweet frenemies tale Nalini Singh just gifted us.
I left contemporary romance reading for a while and it was the author with this series who brought me back to read them from time to time.

I loved Danny and Catie.
They kind of grew up together from their teens to adulthood, each seing the other as its arch nemesis, when they were only taking-no-BS-playing-prank friends.
They have both their doubts and demons, Carie’s are eating at her, preventing her to completely trust anyone, to keep people at arm-length, old wounds not fully healed due to her family’s history.
When Danny feels inadequate as the younger son in his family of three older brothers, all royalty on the rugby fields and outside.
Catie grew up in a dysfunctional family, a mother too focused on her next deal and a loving but unreliable father. As a kid who lost her legs in an accident, she discovered early that while her mother would support her financially, for love, she only had her older sister and her father, a womanizing gambler. Which means she has some sort of trust issue and is unable to believe she will ever be able to hold on a lover’s interest for long or after she ran away.
Danny is one of the most reliable people she knows, he was wired that way by his family and close knitted clan. He always answers the call, and never asks anything in return. He also always treated Catie like any other kid, he gives as much as he gots from her, bickering and teasing is their language. For years, they play the role of nemesis to the other, but always respectful and honorable.

The lovely story is built in two equal parts, the awareness of what could be, then the journey to built toward solid relationship by crossing off old fears and insecurities. How can Danny make Catie understand he is in for the long run when she believes they won’t last past the first sparks.
5 stars

𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 hot

I have been granted an advance copy by the author, here is my true and unbiased opinion.

Kiss Hard has it all! Nemeses to lovers. Fake dating. That moment where people who've known each other for years finally get the feels for each other. Well worth a read.

‘Kiss hard’ is a romance novel written by Nalini Singh, and features the youngest son in the Bishop-Esera family, Danny, and his -favorite- nemesis, Catie.
When these two first appeared together in ‘Cherish hard’, I thought they would make a cute couple. What I never thought about was how much I would laugh and enjoy their story. I just couldn’t put it down!
I love Nalini Singh’s stories and always manage after each book to think that Nalini won’t write anything else that will surprise me. And yet, she still does!

The scales:
Characters: that a 5/5 for me (read below for more).
The plot: I’m giving a ⅗ on that, mostly because it was a ‘loose’ plot point with a ‘pretend to date’ trope. I don’t have a problem with a 3 - I think it works particularly well here because of the romance genre.
Overall rating: ⅘

Both characters in this book are so multi-dimensional in their interests as well as their fears. Danny and Catie are not only celebrities, they are also human, with hobbies that may not fit with their image but make them all the more real and ‘normal’.
Reading Catie’s point of view and life struggles was really interesting and felt like a lot of research went into it. It makes me, as a reader, wonder at someone’s life. Catie’s life as a double amputee after an accident could have been written in a thousand different ways. Nalini finds, once again, a celebration in difference, while gently showing life’s ups and downs. It does not come out as a lesson, but as a hundred little funny moments and titles.
Nalini Singh also touched on several topics that I feel are important. Those include a ‘right to fame and privacy’ as I call it - we witness this topic in Rock Addiction as well. ‘Body image’ is another subject that comes up in this book (look out for the designer!!) which Nalini also looks at in Love hard.
This is my catnip: reading about topics that matter, without making it feel like a lesson in class, and yet feel like I’m learning and discovering new things and aspects of life I had never thought about before.
So I would recommend this book to fans of Helen Hoang, Lyssa Kay Adams, and other romance lovers! And if you are new to Nalini Singh’s books, welcome to the family!

This was a great romance! There were interesting and lovable characters. The romance was beautiful and I love the way it progressed throughout the book. I liked the disability rep and I think that it was respectful and well-done. I haven't read the other books in the series but I'm quite sure that I will be picking them up soon because of this book.

Oh my God!
this was such a great and wholesome book. I really enjoyed a family dynamics of the story and the chemistry of this couple. Nayna and Danny stole my heart with how much they cared about each other and took care of one another. Also great disability rep! I cannot say much about it because I myself am not or know anyone with a disability but I think it was done beautifully in this book.
This book is making me regret why I didn't start reading this series before. I really need to go and read this series from the beginning because I want to read about other couples so bad now.

There are few guarantees in life, but one of them is that a book by Nalini Singh will be hard to put down. Happy sigh.

I wasn't entirely sure at first, to be honest. Most of my Singh experiences had been with her paranormal-fantasy novels. I worried a little that Catie and Danny--two normal (if athletic superstars are normal) modern adults--were too young for me to identify with (I'm older than dirt). But I needn't have worried. Catie's life experiences tempered by her sister's stable presence required her to grow up faster and better than most, and Danny's bigger-than-life personality and giant heart transcends age.

I also worried that the book would be another frenemies-to-lovers tale, but I should have known that Singh would not fall victim to the trope. In spite of the book's blurb, Katie and Danny are not frenemies. They're good friends whose relationship has been built largely on pranks and one-upsmanship, unsurprising for two people who met when they were teens and pretty much grew up together. It's clear that they've always enjoyed each other's company and have been there for one another. At most, they were firmly in the friend zone.

When Catie rescues Danny from an uncomfortable situation in a bar, the two decide that it's in their best interest to feign a relationship for a short time. But rather than becoming a story based on the fake-relationship trope, their pretense simply serves as a chance for them to look at each other in a different way and for them to realize that they could be so much more.

There's so much more to this story, but all you need to know is that it won't let you down. Pick it up and read it.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. Thanks!

As with all Nalini Singh books I sat down thinking "I'll just read one more chapter" and then before I knew it was half way through the book. I've read this entire series and always suspected that Danny and Catie would get their own romance story. They are so well matched - they understand the pressures each has one them and despite all of their bickering they care for and support one another. I loved that Catie immediately knew something was wrong with Danny at the club and jumped into action for him. And of course then there is him hopping right onto a plane to support her after her father has his heart attack. The only things I did not like in this book were that Danny's drugging story kind of gets dropped and we only find out at the end in passing that the person was caught AND that Catie's father doesn't get told off the way he should for being such a crappy parent. Other than that I absolutely loved this novel!

I knew it! If you have been reading the “Hard Play” series from the beginning, this romance was written before this story (chuckle). Well, not the actual “happily-ever-after”, but the foundation of true love based on snark, pranks, and declarations of enemy status.

If you haven’t read a “Hard Play” book, that’s okay, Kiss Hard can be read as a standalone. Nalini Singh still packs this contemporary new adult sports romance with snark, pranks, and declarations of nemesis status.

I love everything about this novel. It has diversity in everything but rainbows. I love that Catie is successful in her own right. She paved a way for herself and does not let life hold her back. Her father is a gambling addict who has a tendency to abandon her during life’s regular stories. Then there is her mother who shows active concern about her business rather than her daughter. Abandonment and trust issues ride Catie hard.

Daniel’s road is completely different. He has to live down his family's success while being grateful for their continued love and support. Now he is struggling on the rugby field and has no clue why.

Then Catie and Daniel get in a predicament which has them fake dating so that they can both maintain their social images and keep their sponsors. I can easily imagine this being the problem for many people in the public eye. The best part about this is that Singh introduces a conversation about safe sex and testing - love this!!!

Singh incorporates Catie’s double-amputee ableism seamlessly into the story. Her defense of being patronized and seen as less than and her over-reaction as a defense mechanism. As a disabled person, I could relate (I am not an amputee).

Kiss Hard has humor, romance, and found family. There are two different journeys that fortunately for us blend, mix, and stand on their own. Catie and Danny are a cute couple that doesn’t want to be and it’s fun watching them implode on their own words.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

4.5 Stars

I've been obsessed with Nalini Singh's Archangel Raphael and his Guild hunter Elena, so much so that I've read the first three books in the Guild Hunter series several times. When I popped in on NetGalley and found Kiss Hard available to read - I had to get it!

This is my first time reading Nalini Singh in a contemporary setting - and I LOVED IT.

Kiss Hard is the fourth book in the Hard Play series and can be read as a standalone. It's a Contemporary Sports Romance following Catie River (the younger sister to Isa Rain from the first book) and Daniel Esera (from the Bishop/Esera family in the previous books in the series).

Catie and Danny have been each other's nemesis since their childhood. They banter and bicker, and always post snarky comments on each other's social media. But even though they seem like enemies, they will always protect each other when required.

When Danny is roofied at a club, Catie's there to help him. Which somehow leads to the entertainment media thinking that Danny and Catie are now an item.

Agreeing to a Fake relationship, Catie and Danny try to navigate through their internal and emotional conflicts as well as their growing attraction to each other. It's a slow burn romance and I was there for every moment.

Catie and Danny are such a wonderful couple. I loved reading them fall in love. Their emotional journey and character development so beautifully written. Nalini Singh has an amazing writing style. I also loved the Bishop/Esera clan always supporting both of them.

Kiss Hard is a friends to lovers (although it is shown that they are enemies - I didn't really feel it). sports, slow burn contemporary romance that will definitely land on your favorites list.

Another great book by Nalini Singh...

It took me a while to remember, but it is about the youngest Esera brother and family friend Catie

Kiss Hard is Book 4 in the Hard Play series. I jumped into Book 4 without any prior reading of the previous books. It is still a stand-alone but I feel that I would have a much better experience with this series had I read from Book 1.

I'm very much invested in this book, it was engaging with great character building. I adore that Nalini Singh is able to write strong female characters with equally strong and yet sensitive male characters. I didn't feel bored or skimp on any pages, it was truly a great reading experience. I will now definitely go back to read the earlier books from this series.

Thanks to NetGalley for this copy of the book.

I loved everything about this book! I think it's difficult to do friends/enemies to lovers well and Nalini did such a great job with this. I loved the family aspects so much because it showed the nuance that exists and that people exist in the gray and are not black and white.

I've been really anticipating Katie and Danny's story. I usually need a a heavy helping of unrequited love with my friends to lovers, but a new awareness in both sides works just right for these characters. The Bishop/Esara brothers can sometimes veer to far into toxic masculinity, but Danny remains on this side of the line.

I love Nalini Singh and her world building. Kiss Hard feels like the last of the series, as all the other Bishop-Esera brothers have had their book. Now it’s Daniel’s turn. The woman in question is Catie, his SIL’s sister and his declared nemesis. She’s training for the Paralympics. He’s a rugby star. She saves him from a sticky situation and they decide to fake date, which turns to actual hookups and real feelings.

The beginning of the book makes you feel like it’s going to be super plot-heavy, but it isn’t, not really. Most of all, the book is about Catie (and Daniel) figuring out how to have a relationship. They definitely have chemistry and it’s good to see the family that I grew attached to in other books, but it never feels epic or heightened like Sailor and Isa’s story did. Instead, it’s a more internal book. I liked it and it was good to see familiar faces, but I didn’t get super emotionally connected to it the way I did earlier books in the series. 3.5 stars.

I received an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book!!!!! The representation! I enjoyed reading about Daniel's Samoan heritage and also this book is childhood friends to lovers which is one of my favourite tropes.

Thank you so much to TKA Distribution and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review! This was a dream as I adore Nalini's books.

Review: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️

FINALLY! After reading Gabriel's, Sailor's and Jake's book, I could not wait to submerge myself in Danny's! It was totally no brainer that Danny and Catie would end up together.

This book is for anyone who loves contemporary romance, a romance that kindles from growing up together with a close knit family group.

Nalini Singh does not disappoint. This story begins with how Catie unexpectedly shielded Danny and thus, saving his reputation while he was roofied with rumors that they are dating. Little did they know, everyone was cheering for their togetherness and indirectly force them to fake date.

From the surface, Danny is portrayed as a huge Rugby God and has everything going on with him. Little did anyone realize that because of his family dynamics (in which all his siblings are crazy successful), he feels the pressure to do his best and it has been slowly dulling his spark for this game. With a close knit family like his, he never had the ability to fail, which affected his growth and his love for rugby. I love his character growth and how his team is willing to work with him to get his back to top form.

Catie is a double amputee, runner training for the Paralympics. She is a tough nut and growing up in a family with neglectful parents with her older sister playing a mum role, she learns not to depend or trust in others. As a result, she has a tough exterior and is more reserved than Danny.

I enjoy the family dynamics and it plays to both characters. As Catie's sister married Danny's older brother, both were always around another and grow together. As a result, it leads to a frenemies relationship and them needling each other which set in for a perfect romance spark when they were forced by circumstances to fake date and started seeing each other in a different way.

The romance build up was wonderful with two amazing characters to fall in love with. I absolutely adore this book and highly, highly recommend it!

This book is so cute and Catie and Danny are everything. The way that Danny just knew what Catie needed, such a real man. I also love a book with no third act break up.

I received an arc through netgalley.

This was a lovely sports romance between two long-time frenemies with low angst - a light, emotional journey to our HEA.
Danny and Catie have known each other since childhood. Their families are connected, even more now since her sister married his brothers, so they know each other well. So it's not even question that Catie helps Danny out in a dicey situation to avoid negative publicity. But the sudden, close proximity without family as a buffer stirs up feeling neither knew were boiling under the surface.


I just vibe with Singh's brand of heroes. There is usually a lot of healthy communication, they don't overstep established boundaries and they are often an affectionate bunch (found family feelings even with blood relatives, platonic relationships are treated as equally important). The writing is also nice, it flows well and has her usual charm. (I could have gone with fewer comments about rippling/toned muscles but at least they are both professional athletes so it's not unrealistic.)

It was clear that the two main characters had a lot of history together. The narrative does a great job of both reminding the reader through memories and comments without making it feel cheap or unearned. I loved to see how careful they both were in the first steps toward a possible romantic relationship and how to balance that with family, friends, and the public. This also includes a fake dating aspect which was fun but not really the focus. It serves as the initial "explanation“ to get our characters to interact more. If you are wanting a book with a general, positive outlook on life with two kind and passionate protagonists, this is a great choice.

With two athletes as protagonists but in different fields, running and rugby, I loved that the story did not play into possible stereotypes. Neither of their jobs is treated as lesser, unimportant, or something easy to achieve. In fact, it is Danny that is having some minor problems with his play while Catie is in top form.
She, instead, has a more emotional journey that has nothing to do with her career. Family dynamics usually shift once the child reaches an adult age and while Catie is well adjusted and mostly happy with her relationship to her flaky father and distant mother, there are some trust issues stemming from her childhood she has not entirely worked through yet. And can I just say, it was absolutely the right move to not make Catie's story about her double leg amputation or any internalized ableism regarding her disability status? That part is not ignored or brushed aside but it is not the focus. Instead, we got an interesting, drama-free exploration of how it is to grow up with flawed parents and how to overcome unhealthy behaviour patterns; it's about growth beyond your comfort levels.