Advance Reader Copy Review: “Only When It’s Us” by Chloe Liese Five Stars

Being published April 1, 2020

Advance Reader Copy Review: “Only When It’s Us” (Bergman Brothers #1) by Chloe Liese: Five Stars

Synopsis: 

“2 Frenemies.

1 Disastrous prank.

Ryder:

Ever since she sat next to me in class and gave me death eyes, Willa Sutter’s been on my shit list. Why she hates me, I don’t know. What I do know is that Willa is the kind of chaos I don’t need in my tidy life.

She’s the next generation of women’s soccer.

Wild hair, wilder eyes.

Bee-stung lips that should be illegal.

And a temper that makes the devil seem friendly.

She’s a thorn in my side, a menacing, cantankerous, pain-in-the-ass who’s turned our Business Mathematics course into a goddamn gladiator arena. I’ll leave this war zone unscathed, coming out on top…And If I have my way with that crazy-haired, ball-busting hellion, that will be in more than one sense of the word. 

Willa:

Rather than give me the lecture notes I missed like every other instructor I’ve had, my asshole professor tells me to get them from the silent, surly flannel-wearing mountain man sitting next to me in class. Well, I tried. And what did I get from Ryder Bergman? Ignored. 

What a complete lumbersexual neanderthal.

Mangy beard and mangier hair.

Frayed ball cap that hides his eyes.

And a stubborn refusal to acknowledge my existence.

I’ve battled men before, but with Ryder, it’s war. I’ll get those notes and crack that Sasquatch nut if it’s the last thing I do, then I’ll have him at my mercy. Victory will have never tasted so sweet.

Only When It’s Us is a frenemies-to-lovers, new adult sports romance between a women’s soccer star and her surly classmate, complete with a matchmaking professor, juvenile pranks, and a smoking slow burn. This standalone is the first in a series of new novels about five Swedish brothers and their wild adventures, ending in a true happily ever after.”

Review

“Only When It’s Us” is filled with more depth and poignancy than the description lets on. The blurb does provide the bare bones of the story but the heart of this story is much more powerful. Willa and Ryder are both in university and attending Business Mathematics, they get thrown together to do an assignment thanks to their interfering professor and a “frenemyship” develops. When they first meet they both make assumptions about the other and slowly they learn they were both completely wrong. The journey of Willa and Ryder’s first meeting to the last scene is beautiful, funny, sexy, challenging, fraught with heartbreak and loss and completely worth experiencing. 

Willa and Ryder share a strong attraction that they fight from day one for their own different reasons. Through painful occurrences in their lives their “frenemyship” becomes much more. In a review for “Their Strictly Friends”, by Nathalie-the-Biblioholic (Goodreads) she writes, “Liese has really cornered the market on depicting people who face some of life’s hardest challenges and how they maneuver their way through these obstacles with courage, anger, bitterness, practicality and hope.” She does it again here.

Ryder and Willa each face life altering challenges and Liese doesn’t sugarcoat their reactions to them. Willa is angry. She has a temper. She can’t express herself. Ryder is blunt and stubborn to a fault. They have very real issues. What is truly great about “Only When It’s Us” is Willa and Ryder’s relationship: they accept each other, no matter their emotional damage, from the beginning. As they learn more and more about each other it doesn’t change their feelings for one another, it only deepens them. 

There is a great scene that involves a reading of Pride and Prejudice in which Willa realizes the parallels between Elizabeth and Darcy and her relationship with Ryder. The prejudice that stood in their way as each both deny their feelings – it’s poignant and a little funny too. 

Willa and Ryder each battle their own personal hardships to get to a place where they can be together. “Only When It’s Us” is a slow burn but when it ignites, it is hotter than a Carolina pepper. When they finally become vulnerable to each other that leads to their true happiness. 

Chloe Liese gives us an honest and beautiful depiction of love, loss, grief in all its forms, the journey back, family, friendship, and the very Swedish, lagom. I highly recommend this book.

We are also introduced to Ryder’s big Swedish-American family the Bergmans, the brothers will have a series of which this is the first book. I’m really looking forward to this series. 

Chloe Liese provides a playlist on Spotify to get you through each chapter of Willa and Ryder’s journey. It was quite a wonderful experience to listen to those songs as I was reading.   

Add to your TBR: Goodreads