ARC Review: Kiss to Defy – Anna B Doe (Blairwood University #3)

Synopsis

She’s a figure skating prodigy. He’s a guy from the wrong side of tracks.

They belong to two completely different worlds…

After dedicating her entire life to figure skating, Rei Mitchell-Nagasaki is ready for a little bit of normal. And what’s more normal than attending college?

Zane West has had a rough life, but he’s found his way out of Ashton Heights and he isn’t about to lose it all when the demons of his past come knocking at the door.

… that are about to collide on the ice.

Rei has one semester to show her father that she can have it all—a normal life and making it to the Winter Games—but it’s not so easy when there is a broody hockey player standing in her way. Once heated arguments turn into sharing the rink and late-night kisses, neither of them will be able to resist the pull.

Will they manage to defy the odds or was their love doomed from the very beginning?

Review

Kiss to Defy is the third book in the Blairwood University series; however, each book can be read as a standalone, so as someone new to Anna B Doe’s writing, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to dive straight into this book and get lost in Blairwood University world. I have a great fondness for stories that combine sports romance with well-written, mature, college-based settings – and Kiss to Defy does it well.

I loved learning all about two similar but also exceedingly different sports as both the hero (Zane) and heroine (Rei) are athletes. Zane plays ice hockey and Rei is a figure skating prodigy. For two characters who spend so much time on the ice, their romance was hot, hot, hot.

I also really loved discovering who Zane and Rei were are individual people and how they interacted together as a couple. Both are extremely likeable people with their own personalities, goals, and ticks. They were easy to relate to and understand, and I often found it very easy to sink straight back into their POVs whenever I picked the story back up on my breaks at work.

Kiss to Defy was a fun, easy to read story that gave me a great view of a college-based romance with enough sports to keep things interesting without being solely focused on athletics. There was also a fantastic balance of relationship building between Zane and Rei with external factors to overcome so that it never felt too heavily focused on one particular issue. The book easily kept my attention throughout and I loved every minute of it. So much so, I’ve very eager to pick up more of this series in the future!

Disclaimer: Thank you to Anna B Doe (author) for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

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