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. 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 brighter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce (-ly attractive. And intelligent…and infuriating…)
It's that magical equation that Ali Hazelwood has solved. One quirky young woman + one stoic older man = a romcom that I'm going to enjoy. I know the "quirky" word is cringey, but it does fit. And older is relative, these kids are like 18/19. So that was one fairly big deviation from the standard....these crazy kids in love were still brilliant, but much younger and less educated.
Mallory's guilt complex is very well developed. The reason was teased out, but it was a doozy. Her mom was the absolute best though. She's dealing with chronic illness, so you can see why maybe she allowed Mallory to take on so much responsibility. But when she does realize just how much Mallory is saddling, she steps back up and reminds her that she's actually still a teenager and a child and it was pretty great.
I couldn't help but imagine that Nolan was Josh Groban from Chess. I don't know if that helped or hindered, but I did keep wishing that they would break into song.
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