Title: The Prospects
Author: K.T. Hoffman
Genre/s and tags: Adult, contemporary, romance, sports fiction, LGBTQ+
Publisher: Dial Press
Publication date: April 9, 2024
Content warnings: transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, panic attacks/anxiety attacks, injuries, sexual content (open door), ageism
Goodreads synopsis:
The pressure cooker of minor league baseball leads to major chemistry in this exhilarating, sexy, and triumphant rivals to lovers debut romance.
Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life.
Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines of dugout benches and roadie buses, they begrudgingly rediscover a comfortable rhythm. As the two grow closer, the tension between them turns electric, and their chemistry spills past the confines of the stadium. For every tight double play they execute, there’s also a glance at summer-tan shoulders or a secret shared, each one a breathless moment of possibility that ignites in Gene the visceral, terrifying kind of desire he’s never allowed himself. Soon, Gene has to reconcile the quiet, minor-league-sized life he used to find fulfilling with the major-league dreams Luis makes feel possible.
A joyful, heartfelt debut rom-com revealing what’s possible when we allow ourselves to want something enough to swing for the fences.
A big thank you to the publisher and Colored Pages Book Tours for sending
an e-ARC my way in exchange for an honest review!
(This, of course, did not affect my overall opinion of the book.)
Hello book nerds! I’m back with another book review and recommendation. But this time, it’s a queer sports romance! Now, I don’t read a lot of queer sports romance, but somehow I always end up really enjoying the ones I read (*cough*All for the Game, Like Real People Do*cough). This book is no exception! I’m talking about The Prospects!
The Prospects is a tender and wholesome queer sports romance novel that surprised me. It’s about baseball and optimism. It’s also about queer love, and most of all, it’s about hope.
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