Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Kennedy Ryan is one of my favorite authors. Ever since I was given the chance to read and review her Grip series, I have jumped through fire to read anything and everything I can possibly get my hands on by her. She is absolutely a go-to author of mine that I look to read as soon as my job as an editor and blogger end simply for the joy of reading an amazing author. She writes incredible stories that shred your soul before ultimately putting you back together. As with all of the books I have previously read by Ryan, Long Shot is an intense rollercoaster of emotions from start to finish. Set in the NBA, this sports romance has a depth that is often forgotten in modern romances. The love story she develops between August and Iris is beyond incredible…to put it mildly.
My craft is not that of an author…I don’t begin to know the number of drafts it takes to produce books of such an astounding quality that your work quickly sores to the elite level that Kennedy Ryan sees. I can’t imagine the toll it takes on your soul to write books that leave your audience shredded and yet deeply in love and moved by a single book. That’s a lot of emotion to process for anyone, and it seems to me the author would feel these things on a deeper level then the reader. After all, they literally put their heart and souls into the words that make up a single story. Everything Kennedy Ryan has written has touched on topics that are in some way profound, and Long Shot is no different. While I can’t begin to offer a better synopsis for Long Shot than the one you can read on goodreads, amazon, etcetera I will tell you that Kennedy Ryan delivers my favorite book (by her) to date. And I thought I would never love a story more than Grip and Bristol’s. I admit that I have an affinity for love stories that are very intense, very character driven, and profoundly passionate. Any person that has read a book by Kennedy Ryan would tell you that these are the very hallmarks of her books. You are guaranteed to go down a rabbit hole with her books and any direction that you expect to follow is often the opposite of where she will take you. Long Shot proved that to me again. Reading the synopsis for this book and reading the book itself are totally different animals. While some might say the book needs trigger warnings, I would argue that it ruins aspects of the plot. However, without any plot spoilers, I will tell you that I really and truly struggled with aspects of this book. Some issues are deeply personal, and this book touched on them for me, but in such a way that I could neither put it down nor change a single detail of Long Shot. As with anything you come across in a book by Ryan, the issues are handled extremely well and with every care.
As I stated, Long Shot is now my favorite book by Kennedy Ryan. She wrote an erotic love story between two people that had an instantly intense connection that even after years of struggle remained unchanged. Don’t miss understand, the semantics of Iris and August’s love story were not easy…but their very connection was. I loved that Kennedy wrote Long Shot in duel perspectives. The ability to read both Iris and August’s perspectives brought a depth to the story would not seems unlikely to achieve with other POVs. I love the sports romance aspect of this story. While basketball is not my favorite sport, it was certainly sexy and provided a great background for the plot that Ryan delivered. As with every book by Ryan, Long Shot was extremely sexy…erotic without being farfetched. And while the book will leave your heart aching in one breath, it will also leave you as turned on as the characters. The aspects of what make this book incredible could continue, but I would rather leave you wanting to discover Kennedy Ryan for yourself. Also, while I love this author deeply, I won’t pad a review to score points. You can be assured that when I say this book is worth far more than five measly stars that I mean it. I highly recommend that you one-click Long Shot without delay.
Purchase Links to come
