Ali Hazelwood has been branching out lately, including her YA debut Check and Mate and her paranormal romance Bride, so it should come as no suprise that she’s now dabbling into sports romance with Deep End (aka Whet).

Deep End [Buy Bookshop Amazon LibroFM] is about a collegiate diver named Scarlet (aka Vandy) who is struggling to make her return to the sport after a bad injury. Her teammate Pen just broke up with Lukas from the men’s swimming team due to him wanting more than vanilla spicy times, but since they are the school’s golden couple of watersports, they are keeping it quiet. Scarlet tries to help Pen through it, but while Pen is drunk at a party, she suggests Lukas and Scarlet hook up since they are into similar things.

This is probably Ali’s spiciest book yet in terms of number of scenes, which has part of the internet all up in arms. Honestly, if you don’t want to read a spicy book, don’t pick up an Ali Hazelwood book. This is her seventh full length novel, plus like five novellas. There was a warning at the front of the book. If you’re shocked by it at this point, I don’t know what to tell you.

End rant.

I think it didn’t go far enough for what’s implied by ‘consensual explorations of kink’ and it could’ve been much stronger there. I feel like a reader could reasonably expect more from a couple who talks about BDSM, but I digress. It was still entertaining.

As a former D1 athlete, I think Ali did a good job of exploring how injuries and pressure to perform can mess with someone. I’m glad we got to see Scarlet working through it with a therapist and help from others, becasue so often, that becomes a destructive internal struggle. It was refreshing to see it handled in a more healthy way than the realities I’ve seen.

I eyeball read the first half and listened to the audiobook for the second half, so I’ll give a few thoughts on the narration as well. Both of the vocal talents did a great job reading. One thing I loved in Deep End and wish more dual narration audiobooks did is have both narrators utilized in conversations, not just whoever’s perspective it was speaking in a different tone of voice. If you already have two voices, utilize them. And props to the male voice, because he handled several characters voices, including Lukas’ Swedish accent. I think he performed quite well.

And if you’re wondering about the classic Ali-isms, yes, some of her staples are there. He’s big, she’s in STEM, etc. It isn’t enemies-to-lovers and not really an only one bed situation… sorta… but it still feels very Ali.

I don’t like Pen and kinda wanted to shake some sense into her, but oh well. That frustration fueled faster reading through the end. If one line in this book and something off-hand that Ali said to me at the launch party are what I think they are, I’m going to have to get over her being a jerk to Scarlet for book two (and if you know me, you’ll know why I’m about to be more critical of that one than this. 😉 )

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. The middle got a bit draggy and probably could’ve used some cuts, but I still liked the book. I was supposed to be reading two other books for interviews, but this is the one I kept reaching for, so that tells you something.

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