Absolutely loved this one! The development of the relationship between Becks and Alden is very well done. Seeing Alden slowly fall in love and forget her player ways, and Becks trying to hide her own growing feelings was so sweet. There were also quite a few good spicy scenes, but their inclusion didn't take anything away from the more romantic moments as some other books I've read.

As well, I liked that they both had such interesting professions and they were well described. I loved meeting Becks' teammates and hearing about her soccer career, and also Alden's programming job (while there was a bit too much jargon) was unique. It was especially great that they worked together and it provided them a way to stay in contact while getting to know one another.

Overall, this was a wonderfully sweet slow-burn friends-with-benefits, and such a great read (especially as a debut!). I would look forward to more books from this author in the future! 5/5 stars.

First the positive. I loved that Rebecka was half Swedish and a former Swedish national football team player. The fact that Linköping was mentioned a lot as the place she lived in for years and played in the team there (LFC) was great since I live very close. The Swedish names, places, football teams and sentences all correct, so I suspect the author has close Swedish connections.

However, the writing is not really making me love the book overall. The chapters are a bit long, the writing way to wordy and way to detailed software discussions made me zone out. For a long time, the only interactions Alden and Rebecka had were sex, sex and more sex so difficult to belove they really will have more than that in the end, the relationship building aspect is really lacking.

Alden has her routine down—work just hard enough to shine at her job, paint a lot, try and give up new hobbies, limit her romances to one-night stands in which she can sneak out in the morning, before the other woman wakes up. But her office's requirement that she work two days in-office each month throws a wrench in this—not least because of an intriguing new colleague.

Sometimes a girl just needs a bread-and-butter romance, so, you know, here we are. This is marketed at least in part as a small-town romance, but I'd argue that it's more accurate to call it a workplace romance. Alden and Rebecka are both software developers, and a lot of their early interactions take place at or around work. (If you're a techie yourself, I expect you'll be able to tell right away whether Wyland knows their stuff or is making it up as they go—I am not a techie, so I'm just going to assume that it all makes sense.) There's also a fair amount of soccer, which makes me happy, but I think the only real "small town" element is that the characters' friends tend to be up in their business. So...a better sell for those who like the workplace romance trope than those who like a small-town setting. (A side note: though pains are taken to make clear that Rebecka isn't in Alden's chain of command—and thus that there isn't actually a question of power balance—Alden comes on *strong*, which I don't really love when she's also fecking terrible about communicating her intentions. It is 100% fine to be looking for something casual, but why spend the night only to sneak out and block your one-time paramour's number? Why not leave when the night is over?)

At any rate, it's a cute story that flies by. The bedroom part of things isn't really to my tastes (I can't take romance seriously when characters go to bed together and immediately have, like, eleven screaming orgasms in a row), but there's a lot of it, so readers who are in it for the banging will have, ah, a banging good time. I'm more in it for the way the Other Woman storyline plays out—I won't spoil it, but it didn't go as I expected, and with Other Woman storylines that's almost always a good thing.

A final aside: The acknowledgements at the beginning of the book note that "I'm not fully out in real life, and since all my writing is queer, that means that not many know I write" (loc. 23*). Here's hoping that the author will someday be in a position to share their writing with whomever they like. I'm glad that, until then, that's not stopping them from writing.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.