Jen 's Reviews > Tiebreaker

4 Love All Stars

In tennis, Love means zero. I call that poetic.

As an awkward preteen tomboy, Maren Murphy worshipped three things: her grandfather, the game of tennis and Noah Callahan. And not necessarily in that order. Sure, her twelve year old self wasn’t going to win any popularity contests, but none of that mattered as long as she had her best friend Noah by her side and she kept winning on the court. As time moved forward and Noah noticed his BFF had grown up (and out in interesting ways), the friendship evolved into something much deeper, until a betrayal sends Maren running for the next decade.

Noah has made a decent life for himself, despite letting the love of his life get away ten years ago. He’s never stopped loving Maren and with her grandfather’s death forcing a reunion between the two, Noah is hoping he can coax Maren into a truce of some kind. What he isn’t counting on is the hostility and palpable ANGER Maren still feels towards him.

Most people spend a lifetime searching for that one person who’s meant for them, their one true mate and all that junk, and never find him or her. I found mine when I was ten and a day doesn’t go by that I wish I hadn’t. Because it’s not a gift. It’s not even romantic. It’s a curse–– one I’ll never be rid of.



This review’s a little tricky for me to write. I finished Tiebreaker in one sitting but it still took a little bit of marinating time for me to wrap my head around it all. To keep my rambling self in check, I’m going to start with the stuff I loved and go from there.

First things first, P. Dangelico can write a slow burn romance with just the perfect amount of angst as well as any author I’ve read. Maren, Noah and the past they shared had me hooked from the first page. Most of the story is told in present day, but we get just enough flashbacks throughout the story to bring the feels. I’m used to flashbacks annoying me or taking me out of the story, but the info drops in Tiebreaker were perfectly timed and managed to keep me engaged.

The second chance romance premise is one of my favorites and sweet baby jeezus, did these two ever need that second chance! Things aren’t always exactly what they seem and both characters needed a little help in the “maning up” department if things were ever going to get back on track. Luckily, that help came in the form of an obstinate grandfather trying to right a wrong.

As much as I love the second chance stuff, I was a bit confused on some of the choices Noah made after the split. The issue most readers are going to have with Noah actually isn’t my beef. I don’t like it but it seemed like a realistic choice to make given the circumstances at the time. My bitch has more to do with the lack of contact in those ten years on Noah’s part. Yeah, she's mad, but she has a right to be. Grow a pair and get your woman back!

(view spoiler)[I know some of you are going to have issues with Noah. If cheating is an absolute deal breaker, I get it. I felt this was handled well and there were some goodies in the way of her moving on and him not so much that I appreciated. My kindle remains unharmed after reading this story. (hide spoiler)]

Tennis plus a second chance romance equals goodness all the way around for moi. Add to the mix P. Angelico’s writing and there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to enjoy this one. Tiebreaker is a snarky, angsty story that managed to engage me emotionally and had me rooting for a happy ending for both Maren and Noah.

ARC provided by the author in exchange for a voluntary review