After spending the summer working as a wedding planning intern and having a summer fling with her brother’s hockey rival Nik (who is also her boss’ son), Izzy is ready to focus on the new semester at McKee University and the new volleyball season. After Nik gets expelled from his school and hockey team, he is forced to transfer to McKee University and become teammates with Cooper Callahan (a.k.a. his hockey rival and Izzy’s older brother). Sharing the same campus means that Izzy and Nik constantly find themselves in close proximity and they eventually resume their secret fling. But when the line between “friend with benefit” and boyfriend begins to blur, Nik realises that he needs to be honest about his mental health and past childhood trauma or risk losing Izzy forever.
Wicked Serve is the fourth and final book in Reilly’s Beyond the Play series of interconnected standalones about the Callahan siblings at McKee University. Wicked Serve is a sports romance featuring the forbidden/secret romance, forced proximity, rival turned teammate’s little sister, grumpy with sunshine, and boy obsessed tropes. This would be perfect for fans of the Beyond the Play series to fans of sports romances like The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy, The Game Changer by Lana Ferguson, Quarterback Sneak by Kandi Steiner, Catching Feelings by Maren Moore, Playing Hard to Get by Monica Murphy, or The Rule Book by Sarah Adams. Some themes and topics present in Wicked Serve include mental health and panic attacks, PTSD and trauma, abuse, marriage and divorce, love and heartbreak, self doubt and self esteem, legacy, as well as family and found family.
I have to admit, Penny and Cooper from Breakaway (book two in the Beyond the Play series) are still my favourite, but Izzy and Nik are for sure a close second! Wicked Serve is probably the spiciest of the Beyond the Play books with lots of sneaking around and secret hook-ups, but it’s also super sweet and swoonworthy with cute nicknames and even a romantic surprise involving adorable koalas. Izzy and Nik’s story was also surprisingly emotional towards the end, I even found myself tearing up a bit, which I was not expecting. I loved Izzy’s girly aesthetic and enjoyed reading about her preamble into wedding planning (without spoiling anything, Izzy even gets to plan a significant character’s wedding!). Having already read the first three books in the series, I enjoyed how all of the Callahans made appearances throughout Wicked Serve and the epilogue of Wicked Serve as well as the overall ending of the series was perfection.
There really wasn’t much about this book that I didn’t like, but I will say that Izzy and Nik’s story had more conflict in it than I typically like (I’m a big fan of no third act break-ups).
Overall, I really enjoyed Wicked Serve and would highly recommend it to fellow sports romance readers. I’m sad that this series has ended but I’m excited to see what’s next for Grace Reilly!
Wicked Serve is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 13th 2024.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
He’s my brother’s biggest hockey rival… but he’s bringing the heat for me.
Nikolai
Hockey is my life, and I need to make this last season count. But when I’m forced to transfer to rival school McKee University for my senior year, I risk pissing off the captain, who happens to be the older brother of Isabelle Callahan: the gorgeous beam of sunshine I messed around with in secret this summer.
Rekindling our fling could risk her brother icing me off the team—not to mention the fact that my scarred past makes having a real relationship impossible—and yet the moment I see Isabelle again, all my wild, burning feelings come rushing back.
Izzy
I have two goals for sophomore year: win back my old volleyball position, and forget I ever knew devilishly handsome hockey defenseman Nikolai Abney-Volkov. As the youngest and only daughter in a family full of athletes, failure isn’t an option.
But when Nik crashes back into my life, I can’t stay away from his broody charm. I’m determined to guard my heart this time, but between the furtive hookups and the heartfelt conversations, the lines between friends-with-benefits and more begin to blur.
As we fall deeper into a place we can’t come back from unscathed, we’ll have to make a choice: fight for a future together, or watch it go up in flames.
Filled with swoons, spice, sports, and koalas, Wicked Serve is a don’t-miss new adult college sports romance.
