Crutches
2 outta 3 heroines recommend hitting your man with your car
This week’s three books are united by a common prop: crutches! At some pivotal point in each of these books, one of the characters is on crutches, requiring an unusual reliance on their budding love interest. Love a good hurt/comfort micro trope!
Rushing In by Claire Kingsley. After losing her publisher, her agent, her boyfriend, and her apartment, suspense novelist Skylar moves in with her father, only to immediately hit local beloved firefighter Gavin Bailey with her car. Love a crash cute!
Gavin would be happy to let Skylar make it up to him in a sexy way for breaking his leg… except her dad is his fire chief and father figure, so even this charming rogue won’t cross those lines. But he’s bored and on crutches, Skylar’s new to town and needs some confidence rebuilding (beyond constantly imagining ways to kill people and hide their bodies because of her chosen genre, a very fun runner), so they strike up a mutually beneficial friendship.
And if they strike up a mutually beneficial other kind of relationship with another kind of lessons… well that’s no one’s business but their own. Until their small town closes in, because secrets have a way of coming out!
Note: this is book 4 in a series, and I definitely recommend reading them in order!
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Long Game by Elena Armas. Buttoned up and ambitious Adalyn Reyes has one teeny tiny meltdown at her job (with a professional soccer team her father owns) that goes viral, and suddenly everything goes up in flames. Her father banishes her to nowhereville North Carolina to rehab her image by rehabbing a local kiddie soccer team. The good news is that her new neighbor is Cameron Caldani, an international superstar soccer player. The bad news is they hate each other upon first sight (she hits him with her car! Another crash cute!), he’s super paranoid about getting recognized, and he doesn’t want to help.
Things proceed from here with a mixture of stubbornness, begrudging respect, and a shared, growing love of the small town they both ended up in for not dissimilar reasons. At one point Adalyn sprains her ankle in a panic (technically she doesn’t use crutches but she DOES have to stay off her ankle for a long period of time) and Cam takes to carrying her around his house to take care of her and is everything you could want out of a Roy Kent-coded reclusive hero. I guess you could say CAM is her crutch!
There’s also lots of animal chaos, little kid cuteness, and a classic Elena Armas overthinking heroine with a stoic but messy hero.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
The Fake Out by Stephanie Archer. Hazel’s a physical therapist (relevant to my interests much??) for a pro hockey team, and when her ex is drafted, her somewhat nemesis Rory, another player, gets drafted to be her fake beau so her shitty ex keeps his distance. Rory’s been pining for Hazel since high school, but her experience with her ex has closed her off from any interest whatsoever from pro athletes. With their new fake dating situation, though, he might have some new avenues to explore to get to her heart.
Hazel, based in part off Stephanie Archer’s podcast co-host who leads body-positive yoga classes, is hoping to launch her own company to do the same, partially due to her longtime battle with self image as inherited from her hyper-critical (mostly of herself) mother.
Rory’s got his own parental problems (his dad is his agent!) to work through as well, leading both characters to have to get real with themselves and each other to emerge as full people informed but not derailed by their past.
At one point Hazel falls on the ice during an event, sprains her ankle, and is on crutches for a while. She never hits Rory with her car (sad) but as you would hope, he’s very happy to be of service while she’s limping around.
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending books with runaway brides!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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