Overall Grade: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Tropes: second chance romance; sports romance; workplace romance; forbidden romance; single dad; friends to lovers
Devney Perry + Montana + Football is the perfect romance equation. Add to it the wounds of a spurned love, and it becomes a 3-dimensional geometric shape of love. I had long awaited this story because, to date, Perry has eschewed sports romances. However, given her penchant for small-town romance set in the “wilds” of Montana, it feels like a good fit. And her book, Coach, truly lives up to this hype. For as much as I pined for this book, it didn’t disappoint.
For one, Devney Perry paints the disappointment of lost love in so many shades of angst. Both Ford and Millie encounter this loss in different ways, but it is painful nonetheless. Perry doesn’t dive deep into the angst bucket, but she provides enough of it to tug at heartstrings and draw us deeper into her story.
Additionally, Ford’s tenacity in winning Millie’s heart is exactly what you need from a story such as Coach. That he’s willing to pursue her is the antidote to Millie’s broken heart (and it makes Perry’s readers swoon too). This is the dream of women everywhere: for a man to admit his mistakes and take action to win a heart. And this is my favorite part of this story.
Through Millie’s story arc, Perry shows the power of grieving and letting go. She walks Millie carefully through her acceptance of Ford’s choices in the past, and she sets her up to move on. However, Ford’s interest is simply too much to ignore. Even more, Perry highlights the disparity in how men and women are treated in the workplace as Millie must confront the trials associated with pursuing a relationship with Ford in the face of strict workplace rules.
Finally, Perry adds a precocious daughter to Coach’s mix. Here’s my challenge to romance writers everywhere, though: write a romance with an average kid…or even one that’s fairly awful. Ford’s daughter, Joey, binds Millie and Ford together through her insistence on developing a relationship with Millie. Of course, Ford’s ex must add complications to the mix of this book, but it allows Ford to choose Millie when it counts the most.
Devney Perry’s Coach was exactly the book I needed this week to remind me why I love her stories so much. Even when her hero is a former NFL football player, the actions and reactions of her characters and their stories feel real, and I found myself lost in the dreaminess of their reconciliation and eventual happily ever after.
In love and romance,
Professor A
Professor Romance 