The Art Of Catching Feelings is a lighthearted and sweet rom-com, with some minor or big issues depending on your viewpoint. We will circle back around to that in a minute.

Daphne is reeling from the dissolution of her marriage. Chris is in a baseball slump after losing someone close.
A heckling, some crying, a slide into direct message, a friendly banter.
Innocent enough. What could go wrong?
The first half of this novel is a slow build. The main characters interact through messaging, and while the back and forth is sweet, it lacks tension and chemistry. The second half is better, there's face to face interactions, and it heats up. But the big underlying issue is Daphne not coming clean as to who she really is. And this is where it could make some readers angry. To me, it was a minor flaw, but I could see why others would have problems. The writing was good, and the characters were likable, even if poor choices were made.

A netgalley arc from the publisher was read and reviewed honestly.

“A professional baseball player and his heckler prove that true love is worth going to bat for.” (I love that tagline from the book’s blurb.)

Daphne Brink is in a rut. She’s just finalized her divorce; she and her cat live in a tiny apartment; and she’s doing freelance writing assignments to get by.

When she and her best friend attend a baseball game for the local major league team the day she signs her divorce papers, Daphne imbibes a bit too much—okay, probably way too much—and starts heckling the players as they walk up to bat.

She just doesn’t realize that she’s heckling the players from the home team.

As it turns out, one player that she heckles, Chris Kepler, has quite the memorable reaction to her taunts.

An (accidentally ) anonymous apology sent via social media DMs leads to a deep emotional connection developing between Daphne and Chris, but when Daphne gets a job working with the team, how will her anonymous messages to Chris impact their real lives?

There’s something about Alicia Thompson’s writing that immediately sucks me in. Word choice? Tone? I can’t quite pinpoint it, but I know it’s good.

I was quickly pulled into Daphne and Chris’s world.

Highlights for me:
- Their banter
- Their chemistry 🔥🔥🔥
- How Daphne adapts and grows
- Chris and how he opens up to Daphne/Duckie
- How Thompson handles grief
- Plus Daphne is a bookstagrammer(!)

Thompson deals with some heavy topics in this one, so please check a trusted source for content warnings.

I received an advance copy of the book from Berkley and NetGalley. All review opinions are my own.

You've Got Mail but make it baseball. I AM OBSESSED. This was my first sports romance and it was just perfect. Loved the FMC, very relatable and made the miscommunication make sense. The baseball MC, oof basic but adorable. Big fan.

I’ll preface by saying that I HATE the miscommunication trope and when you can see the third act breakup coming from a mile away? I hate that even more! However, I couldn’t help but love The Art of Catching Feelings. I may not be a baseball fan, but I am an Alicia Thompson fan and just love the way she writes her romances.

Freshly divorced, Daphne cares less about baseball and more about sticking it to her ex. She gets decidedly more in the spirit after a couple of raspberry beers and it’s infinitely more fun once she begins heckling the guy to up bat. Her taunts may be silly and lame, but she didn’t expect to bring him to tears. Unbeknownst to most, baseball player Chris is struggling following the death of a loved one, and it has knocked his baseball career off track. He doesn’t usually use social media, but when a kind message pops up from a stranger he can’t help but respond.

Flaws and all I loved Daphne’s character. I thought she was realistic and even though she made some questionable decisions I still found myself rooting for her. Chris was such a sweet book boyfriend and my heart broke for him so many times. I’m glad he managed to get the help he needed and found effective ways to communicate. I loved watching their love story unfold. My only complaint is that I wish Daphne had told Chris sooner. She had so many chances!

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a review copy.

I wish that the mistaken identity trope hadn’t taken place for as long as it did. I loved so many parts of this book but I just struggled with getting over her lying for so much of it. Overall it was satisfying though!

This starts off so cute!! A drunken comment at a baseball game that hits too close to home for the player that hears it and now Daphne is recognizable as a heckler. She dms the player but he doesn't know it's her and they start talking. It's too late to say anything now.
Meanwhile she becomes the team's sideline interviewer which is only because the former one is her sister in law and she's trying to fix her mess.

I love the text relationship where they share all not knowing anything about the way they look or who they are. So she has a layered relationship with him and he thinks he's flirting with two women. These are so fun to unravel. I love these types of romances so much. The missed opportunity to fess up and they already have great chemistry. Sorry not sorry there's a third act breakup and I love it. Gave them both a chance to grow and work on some things they were struggling with so it was well spent.

This was a warm and fuzzy one and I loved it.

Chris was such a sweetheart omg. 🥺 I loved him so much. This plot went exactly how I thought it’d go and you know what? I’m not mad at it. Though I will say Daphne started to frustrated me. All the lying she was doing…whew. I’m surprised girl didn’t mess up earlier.

ALICIA THOMPSON WILL YOU MARRY ME?

She is an auto-buy author. everything she writes is gold and this was OUTTER THE PARRRRKKKKK good. 10/10 no notes. none ever needed. this is gold. She really over here making me catch feelings. breaking my heart and putting it back together. This was everything.

BUY BUY BUY

I was given an arc by the publisher; however, I have purchased multiple copies for myself and my friends.

“𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 | 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Fresh off a divorce, with front row seats won from her ex-husband in a game of rock, paper, scissors, Daphne decides to drown her sorrows with alcohol. When she accidentally heckles Chris Kepler, a player on her home team, no one is more shocked than she is when her words bring him to tears as he steps up to the plate. Intending to right her wrong, she reaches out to him through her Bookstagram to apologize, but she forgets a crucial detail - mentioning SHE is the one who heckled him. As their online relationship begins to grow, and Daphne is pushed to accept an employment opportunity for the team that requires her to interact with Chris in person nearly every day, lines are crossed, games are played and hearts will break.

⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️⚾️❤️

I know all is fair in love and baseball, but the further I read in this book, the more anxious and irritated I became. The constant lying was actually insane. Layla’s response to it was perfectly acceptable because catfishing someone and then trying to date them as yourself afterwards is the work of a crazy person. Chris deserved better.

Overall, I do appreciate the mental health representation, the steamy scenes were well written, and I love all of the book talk and Taylor Swift references. However, all of those are small shiny moments for what was otherwise a very average book, with not a lot happening (other than my blood pressure raising as I screamed at the page for Daphne to just tell the truth).

Read this book if you enjoy:
✨ Lying, liars who lie
⚾️ Baseball Romance
✨ Workplace Romance

Daphne is newly divorced and joins her brother at a baseball game, where he works in guest services for the team. She has one too many beers and starts heckling the third baseman, Chris. Later that night, she messages him to apologize and they end up talking. Only she doesn't make it clear that she was the heckler. When she takes a temporary job as a reporter for the team, Chris doesn't realize who she is. It doesn't take Daphne and Chris long to form their situationship, but he knows her as Daphne, and not her social media name. How long can Daphne keep this a secret?

I've been trying to get into more baseball romances (tis the season - I have two more games lined up this summer!) and I'm so glad I came across this one. Some others I've read have only had mmc’s as baseball players, but you don't get to see any in-game action. Not the case here! I loved how we got to see Daphne grow as a reporter and it was fun seeing her interact with different members of the team. Daphne and Chris have great chemistry. Chris is dealing with the loss of a family member due to suicide and we see this affect his playing. This isn't talked about in great detail, but is mentioned a handful of times. I will say I'm not a fan of the secret/hidden identity thing, but how Chris found out was not how I expected, so that part I did like more than usual. This is my second Alicia Thompson book and both were great!

Thank you to Berkley Romance and the author for an advanced copy of this book. Opinions are my own.

THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF: You love sports romances with fun characters and you're a fan of texting in books.

Ooof, this was a miss. I am not necessarily opposed to a deception but the reveal happened WAY too late. The heroine lying about her identity for nearly 80% of the book and the hero feeling so betrayed and shocked... sorry, but this just wasn't resolved in a satisfying way because I did not believe that they could live happily ever after. It's sad because I really liked the writing otherwise.

I have really enjoyed Alicia Thompsons books and I really liked The Art of Catching Feelings as well. I was a little worried about the secret identity thing but it worked out and I was good with how it worked out. One of my favorite reads of the month and I definitely would recommend it!

I reallllly liked this one a lot. While I own Alicia Thompson’s other books, this is the first of hers that I have read. Because of that, I didn’t have any expectations going in as I wasn’t familiar with her writing. But I really enjoyed it.

The baseball aspect made it a great summertime read and I loved our main man: Chris Kepler. He was so sweet and soft-hearted, and my own heart hurt for everything he was going through. For better or for worse, I connected with Daphne a lot. Her indecision might annoy some readers, but, personally, I found it very relatable. I put page flags on so many quotes, y’all. At one point I even said out loud to myself, “oh my gosh this woman is me.” Hahaha. Yea. So. Like her or not, for good and for bad, I saw myself in her.

I did struggle a bit with the whole lying-by-omission/keeping-a-massive-secret aspect of the plot. There was a certain point in the story where I got super uncomfortable that Daphne hadn’t been honest with Chris yet. I get that it is part of the whole story and how it was meant to be played out, but I also think had that little scene not happened, the weight of her secret would have been just as heavy and hurtful.

Thankfully, the two relationships aren’t dragged out super long so it made it more palatable as the story went on. Don’t get me wrong, I still didn’t like that she was keeping secrets! But it didn’t feel as two-faced as things developed.

(I’m trying not to give spoilers, so I apologize if any of that is very confusing to understand!)

Anyway, I’m excited to check out the author’s other works and will be moving them up the TBR pile to try to get to them sooner.

A fun read that's reminicent of You've Got Mail! Cute and a little spicy too! It was alight read but had a lot of heart too.

i wasn't the hugest fan of alicia thompson's earlier novel 'love in the time of serial killers,' so i was very pleasantly surprised when i really enjoyed this one!

- hate-to-love, but also a secret online romance? the mix worked really well for me
- discussions of chris’ mental health were handled with extreme care
- LITERALLY NONE OF THE CONFLICT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY JUST TALKED
- unexpectedly loved the baseball?

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Tender, hot!, and truly moving - I had so much fun reading this. It made me love Baseball!

The ‘what has she gotten herself into” and “I’d probably do the same’ moments had me living for what would happen next. The plot was plotting with the hidden identity texting and forced proximity in the workplace. I was living my early 2000’s RomCom dreams with this! And that’s just half the reason I love this book so much.

The other half? I loved Daphne so early on, which I have come to expect from Thompson’s writing. By 10% I am deeply invested in her character's happiness, and Daphne was such a stand-out for me. She has been through it, just ending a marriage that stole her self worth. So of course she thinks she can’t possibly have any lasting impact on anyone.

And Chris, a man who cares so strongly about the people he loves. I heard once that romance is just two idiots who need to stop believing lies about themselves so they can be in love. That is the simple way to explain this story. Daphne believes she isn’t worthy of such notice or care, but Chris wants to care for her. After losing his brother Chris thinks he’s failed at loving people, but Daphne feels so cherished by him, twice. I love how achingly intimate it felt.

Another thing I’ve come to expect from Thompson’s writing is the empathy she is able to transfer between her characters and readers. It is unmatched. This handled the topic of d*ath by s*icide with such grace.

There's just SO much I loved in this. I loved the friendship and ‘locker room talk’ between Randy and Chris, it felt real! And it was so unexpectedly sweet the way they cared for each other. I loved Daphne taking care of herself in small ways, even just doing her hair. That was surprisingly impactful for me and had me cheering her on even more.

And the tension between Daphne and Chris which had my cheeks heating! I was actually physically pining over them! This is the, ahem, hottest!!! book Thompson has written so far. The heat is only matched by how tender it is. Romance at its best.

This book is a home run! A knockout? A very good game! Gimme me a break, I'm new to baseball, but it's a win.

Another home run from Alicia Thompson!! I am full on embracing the new baseball romance books that have released lately and The art of catching feelings is right up there with the best of them!!

This dual POV, heckler turned on air sideline reporter who falls for a major league player suffering from the suicide of his brother brought me to tears, made me laugh, swoon and fall in love with Daphne and Chris!! The mental health rep in this story was excellent!!

I absolutely loved this book even though the miscommunication of the online/texting to IRL catfishing esque plot had me cringing for when the lies would all come crashing down. Highly recommended for fans of books like The prospects by KT Hoffman or Wild Card by Staci Hart. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!!

Steam level: some open door spicy scenes

Another sports romance for the win! I loved the characters and their meet cute and I loved the You’ve Got Mail vibes. This was a little bit of a slow burn and I was disappointed that it took so long for the characters to figure it out but overall this was a fun read.

I enjoyed this book so much. I loved the author’s last book, so I absolutely had to grab her new one. It was everything and more. All the feelings, the fun banter, the lovely characters. The cover is so so perfectly fitting to the story. I would ready anything from this author.

It bother me how much Daphne was dishonest though. It wasn’t fair to Chris that she didn’t tell him the truth, as to who she is. I wish she told him early on. She had so many opportunities.

Delicious, emotional, upbeat romance between a baseball player and the woman who heckled him at a critical moment. The characters are terrific, and they have great chemistry.