Book Review: Hail Mary

Hail Mary is the last book in the Red Zone Rivals series by Kandi Steiner. I really enjoyed this one and loved the storyline.

In book 3, Quarterback Sneak, we meet Mary – Julep’s roommate. We know she is curvy, has a lot of tattoos, and likes to smoke/do edibles once in a while to chill. We also know that she hates football players and Leo Hernandez in particular, but no one knows why. Leo, is one of the side characters in the series and lives across the street from Mary and Julep. When Hail Mary begins Mary is on her own because Julep and Holden have moved now that Holden is in the NFL. Unfortunately the pipes in Mary’s house burst, flooded the whole house, and there is a ton of damage. Not wanting to have to move back home to her parents’ and lacking the funds to find a new place at the last minute, Leo insists that Mary move in to the house he shares with a few other teammates. Highly resistant at first, Mary eventually has no choice but to live with the enemy.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but I’ll say that we learn that Mary has known Leo since they were teenagers in high school and at one point she thought she loved him, but something happened that broke her heart into pieces and she has hated him ever since. Meanwhile, Leo has no idea why Mary hates him so much but he knows he feels an insane attraction towards her and wants to figure out what he can do to make her like him.

I loved the book and loved the friends to enemies to friends to lovers journey Leo and Mary go on. The thing that happens in high school that broke Mary’s heart, broke my heart too! I really felt for her and even teared up. But later on when Leo was trying to make him see how much he’s changed and really willing to do anything for her, she was still hesitant and at times downright stubborn which got a little bit tiring at times. It’s one of those things where eventually you’re just like either you forgive him or you don’t, but you can’t keep punishing him for the same thing forever, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I loved the book and the epilogue was a fantastic wrap up for the series and gives a glimpse of what’s to come in the future for all the couples.

Read this if you want a spicy sports romance with forced proximity and the friends to enemies to lovers trope.