CBR18 Bingo: Season – Tennis court seasons (hard court, clay, grass, etc…)
Miles Callahan and Matteo Russo are rivals. Miles is ranked number four in the world and is America’s next big tennis hope. Matteo, an Australian former teenage tennis phenom, is unranked and is fighting his way back into professional tennis after taking years off to recover from a devastating accident when he was nineteen.
To compete at the professional level, Matteo pays his own way and doesn’t have the sponsorship deals that normally cover flights, hotels, equipment, training, court rentals, and enough high-quality food to fuel an elite athlete. He shares dingy rental apartments with his friend Katie, another professional player, and schleps his perpetual pile of sweaty workout clothing to the nearest laundromat.
Matteo is also the only out player in men’s professional tennis. He feels that no matter how much he improves from match to match, the press is only interested in his accident and what it’s like to be the only openly gay man on the court. He is fighting three battles at once – his recovery, his comeback, and how to be the role model he wants to be while simultaneously feeling othered and not having anyone with whom to share his experience.
Miles, on the other hand, travels with a full entourage and stays at four star hotels. Matteo used to beat Miles during their junior matches, and resents what Miles has achieved while Matteo has had to struggle for so long. Miles and Matteo face off in the second round of the French Open and Miles trounces Matteo in straight sets. When Matteo confronts Miles in the locker room post-match, he claims that Miles wouldn’t be so smug if he tried to survive on the professional circuit without his support crew.
Matteo takes his loss and moves on to training for Wimbledon. On the second day there, Miles shows up as his next door neighbor. He took Matteo’s challenge and decided to slum it (not his words) with his former rival. Matteo is bewildered, intrigued, and wondering why the hot, rich, cheeky, straight rival is inviting him to train and flirting with him constantly. It turns out that Miles is gay and for most of the book, he has absolutely no intention of coming out.
I ate this up. I’m a sucker for a good tennis story. Make it a sexy, hot, queer romance with an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope and I’m sold. Matteo and Miles are real people with real fears and flaws. It is easy to understand how their environments shaped them. Matteo has unconditional love and support from his family and friends, while Miles is his parents’ meal ticket and the reason (or so they say) why he is so successful.
That said, it was hard for me to like Miles. He is well-written, but the dynamic between him and Matteo felt very lopsided. The book was very romantic, but I was not happy with how cold Miles could be, especially with how warm and forgiving Matteo was.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Redamance Books and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.
