4.5⭐️/ 3🌶️

Jane Darling and Jasper Jannich were two different individuals. Jane was a single mom, former model, and now matchmaker trying to drum up business for prospective clients. Jasper was the quarterback on a NFL team, and living his bachelor life. Having known each other over the years through the shared connection of Jane’s older sister being married to Jasper’s best friend, the two of them didn’t get along most of the time, but that changed in this story! With tropes like, enemies to lovers, slow burn romance, reverse grumpy/ sunshine, angsty, and a protective MMC, there was a lot to enjoy about this story written by the amazing, Ilsa Madden-Mills.

Jane was a single mom, and as you could imagine she was often busy with work but also finding time to spend quality time with her precious daughter. In this story, I got to see more of Jane’s day to day life, and more importantly learn about her backstory. Before Jane became a mother, she was a model, and experienced young love, but that relationship ended badly when the father of her baby wanted nothing to do with being a parent. Between a bad relationship, abandonment due to her mom leaving her and her siblings, Jane wasn’t in a hurry to jump into a new relationship, she’d rather focus on her matchmaking business and her family. 

Jasper was quite the player on and off the field, but that didn’t mean he was careless or rude, he was a genuinely kind man with a heart of gold, and charm. I immediately liked Jasper in the first book, and now in his own story, it was refreshing and fun to get to know him better. I expected to see Jasper all smiles and laughter, and while he did have plenty of moments where he was lighthearted, there was also the unexpected truth about his past concerning his biological mother. Jasper’s life wasn’t always great, from a young age he was abandoned by his biological mother, and that affected him. Thankfully, with his adopted family, they loved him so much and that was all he could ever ask for. Seeing Jasper deal with his past coming back wasn’t something I thought would come up in this story, but it did reveal a lot about Jasper’s character and how despite being a sunshine type of man, he wasn’t all smiles all the time. Jasper was much more than an athlete, he was a man who often felt lonely and wished for someone to care about him as himself and not the famous NFL quarterback. Reading this book made me appreciate Jasper even more, and he was a mix of charm, sweet, thoughtful, protective, and a genuine person. 

This was a sweet, entertaining, and heartwarming romance that showed the former enemies becoming lovers. Jane and Jasper had come a long way from initially not wanting anything to do with each other, but that changed when Jasper went from a prospective client to Jane’s matchmaking services, to falling for each other. I thought the story was enjoyable especially seeing how Jane was able to open herself up to Jasper as opposed to the usual way she treated him before. Jasper was a fun loving guy who was easy to get along with, but through his backstory it revealed there was more to him than just his smiles and flirtatious attitude. The moments when Jasper and Jane were together were good, I loved seeing them get closer the more the story progressed and even the moments between Jasper and Londyn were adorable. The plot line wasn’t too heavy, but some aspects of both Jane and Jasper’s lives did include some minor heavy topics. This story was pretty easy going, and I liked it for the way it was fairly quick, lighthearted, but also had some depth to it. I wasn’t expecting the specific plot twist later in the story, but I guess it worked for Jane and Jasper’s story and to further highlight the progress in their romance. All in all, this was a good book, I enjoyed it, and anything Ilsa Madden-Mills writes, I automatically read it and love it.