Review: In Your Court

In Your Court by Kit Haley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.https://www.goodreads.com/review/edit...#

For once the blurb really nails it.

A sweet, steamy AF contemporary MM romance! Find inside: truckloads of hot, witty banter, exploration of queer solidarity, lots of tennis details but very little actual tennis, and amusing Australian/American cultural confusion.

Matteo Russo is an Australian tennis player. He was extremely promising as a young player, won a few junior tournaments, but a car accident left him injured and ever since he has struggled to reclaim his previous rankings. To boot, Mat is the only tennis player to openly state he is gay, a statement that brought him a lot of nasty comments and has made him feel like The Gay Tennis Player - every press conference, win or lose, he gets asked whether his sexuality had anything to do with the result.

As a junior, Matteo's greatest rival was Miles Callahan, a tall arrogant American with model good looks and oodles of money at his disposal. Miles now has endorsements aplenty and is ranked world number 5 (or it could be 3 - I can't remember and can't be bothered to check). Of course what made it even more galling was that Miles ticked every box on Mat's mythical checklist for a boyfriend.

When the two of them meet at the French Open, Mat puts up a good fight, but loses two sets to one. When Miles makes a sneering comment Mat points out that Miles wouldn't find it so easy without his five star hotel, chauffeur driven car, sports therapist, coach, manager etc, etc and challenges him to live like a 'normal' player.

When Mat gets to London in preparation for Wimbledon he gets a text from a number saved in his contacts as 'Scrunchie'. It's Miles accepting the challenge, he's come to London determined to stick to Mat's budget, forgoing his team and comforts. But as they bond over laundry and start practising together Mat comes to realise that Miles doesn't seem him as broken or defective, Miles sees him as his most difficult opponent, one who is impossible to beat when at the top of his game.

Although the film Wimbledon gets slated in this book for being inaccurate, I must confess to loving it (even tried to watch it the other day but refused to pay £3.49 to stream a 20-year old film) and this gave off similar vibes. There's lots of family angst and I felt it went on a bit too long towards the end but I loved Mat and Miles, two genuinely nice guys.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.


View all my reviews