Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟Audiobook: Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🚪/🌶️

By Ali Hazelwood

In her young adult debut (out 11/7/2023), Hazelwood writes an absolutely charming book that is the perfect balance of sweet, swoon, thoughtful-provoking, and funny.

Mallory Greenleaf was once a tween chess phenom, but now 18, she hasn’t played chess since it destroyed her family four years ago. Today, she worries more about keeping a roof over her family’s head, caring for her ill mother, and getting her sisters to school on time. When her best friend begs her to compete in a charity chess competition, she reluctantly agrees, only to face Nolan Sawyer, the #1 ranked chess player in the world who has become an international sensation for his unrivaled skill and his unbearable good looks. At first, her play is a little rusty, but then the unimaginable happens: she beats the unbeatable Nolan Sawyer. The win thrusts her back into the world of competitive chess, which she desperately tries to keep a secret from her family. As her passion for chess returns, her connection to Nolan evolves.

This book is filled with heart, complex family dynamics, deep friendships, and being a woman in the male-dominated chess world. Chess is not only the backdrop but woven in throughout the book, and you can feel why the characters love it. Hazelwood is known for spicy scenes in her adult books, and although she doesn’t shy away from those subjects in this book, she does temper it in a pitch-perfect way for a YA novel.

The audiobook, narrated by Karissa Vacker was EXCEPTIONAL.