Slow and Steady Rush

In the first installment of Trentham’s Falcon Football series, a young woman gets a new shot at love when she returns to the small Alabama town of her youth to look after her injured grandmother. Darcy Wilde is a prim and proper librarian trying to live down her mother’s scandalous reputation. Her new neighbor, Robbie Dalton, who’s Falcon’s new high school football coach, has a way of riling her up. But irritation gives way to mutual desire, spoiled only by a miscommunication that leaves Darcy convinced Robbie is gay—an inaccurate assessment that threatens to ruin his reputation with the townsfolk. To save Robbie’s image and his job, they engage in a fake relationship that threatens to turn all too real with each sizzling kiss. But Robbie has dark secrets and traumas of his own to overcome before he can commit to what they both know to be a good thing. The instant chemistry and dynamic give-and-take between the two fuels this otherwise ordinary romance as it juggles several different dramatic subplots. Trentham pulls the various elements together in time to deliver a sweet, satisfying story. (Mar.)