Wicked Serve

With this final installment in her “Beyond the Play” New Adult series (following Stealing Home), Reilly offers an emotionally deep and sizzling grumpy-sunshine romance. College sophomore Izzy Callahan, the youngest in a family of all-star athletes, is set on winning back her spot on the school volleyball team. She is determined not to let anything get in her way, but her plans are upended when she runs into Nik Abney-Volkov, the scarred Russian hockey player she had a fling with the previous summer. As Nik and Izzy spend more time together, they struggle not to succumb to their electric chemistry, eventually striking a friends-with-benefits agreement. With deep conversations about mental health, family trauma, and panic attacks, Izzy helps Nik reach a better place and finds herself falling for him all over again. Sadly, the narration by Faith Clark and Oscar Reyes is uneven, with each narrator reading at a distractingly different pace. Additionally, Reyes falters as he affects a Russian accent.