Mallory Greenleaf is done with chess. Every move counts nowadays. After the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory’s focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious “Kingkiller” Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning bad boy of chess.
Nolan’s loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone—especially Mallory. What’s even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory’s victory opens the door to sorely needed cash prizes and, despite everything, she can’t help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist….
As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren’t only on the board, the spotlight is hotter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce(-ly attractive. And intelligent…and infuriating…)
“Because when I’m with you, Mallory, everything is different. When I’m with you, I want to play more than I want to win.”
High-stakes, fast-moving, and perfectly played, I could not zoom through this fast enough. Nolan and Mallory were everything in this and I could not get enough of them!
Nolan stares like I’m the center of gravity of the room, like nothing else ever existed but me in all of space and time.
I loved every aspect of this book: the chess, the family, the friends, and the romance. Everything was built and weaved so well. It is YA, so when we get to the spice, it fades to black… but it’s done so well for the story.
Side note: Oz is by far the unsung hero of this story. I was laughing so hard at his lines and parts in this book.
Check & Mate sat on my bookshelf for a while… and that was a dang mistake. I honestly wish I could read this again for the first time. If you’re an Ali Hazlewood fan, or even if you’re not, definitely give this one a read!
Jotted by Jena 