One of the most anticipated reads of 2024 did not disappoint. The plot was everything that I hoped it would be and so much more. A special thank you to Netgalley, Grace Reilly, and Avon and Harper Voyager for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I don’t often read a brother’s rival romance, but I am so glad that I read this one! Nikolai and Izzy had more than just sparks from the very beginning. I loved how deep their conversations went and how they supported each other regarding their passions. I also loved that Izzy was an athlete. I feel like there needs to be more women athletes in stories!

I absolutely loved the rest of this series. And maybe I could have gotten into this particular title if I had been reading a physical copy of the book. But I couldn’t get past the narrator’s voice, and sadly this was a DNF for me.

"He’s my brother’s biggest hockey rival…but he’s bringing the heat for me." now that's how you get me to click request now! I am appalled that I haven't read many hockey romances because this was so good! I love a good brothers enemy trope, bring on the HEAT!

I couldn’t finish this. The accent of the male narrator was too distracting. Will try again in physical form.

This is a VERY open door romance! The main characters are in college, but their maturity seemed more like high schoolers. The story was great, and I really liked the family scenes.

i've read another book in this series and do like the family but thsi book was hard to take, it was both serious about really intense issues and not and that was a hard needle to thread

I switched between the audiobook and the digital book for this. The audiobook was great! This book is lighthearted and enjoyable - although it did feel a bit long in parts. It does capture the charm of a forbidden summer fling. I enjoyed meeting the characters and seeing previous characters from this author pop up in this book. It's a cute and easy read with just the right amount of romance and spice.

For Hockey focused NIK switching school;s was never going to easy.Finding our Izzy, his summer hook-up is the little sister to his new captain makes things even harder. A cute secret love story that does not seem overly sweet.

"Wicked Serve" is the 4th book in the "Beyond the Play" Series by Grace Reilly. After following the 3 Callahan Brothers, it's finally time for Izzy Callahan's story. Collegiate volleyball player and aspiring wedding planner, Isabelle Callahan, gets her dream summer internship in New York City. New York brings her new experiences. And a summer fling. But there's one problem. It's her brother Cooper's collegiate hockey nemesis Nikolai Volkov. But when summer ends, and so does the fling, there's no chance of her brother finding out. Until circumstances thrust Nik back into Izzy's life. As they venture past the "friend zone" and things get deeper and more complicated, can they survive everything that's thrown at them, or do they walk away?

This was a great finale to the Callahan siblings series. "Wicked Serve" tackles some tough subjects including alcoholism, abuse, and childhood trauma. Reilly handles all of these topics with care and thought and delivers a beautiful and emotional conclusion to the series.

This was a fun new adult sports romance! As someone who does speed up her audio (I'm sorry the ADHD just can't handle 1x) I will say the MMCs thick accent was on the hard to understand side. That is totally a me and how fast I choose to listen to my audiobooks problem though. I am sure most will love the accent!

I really enjoyed this book! Quick easy read.
A fun romance!
I really enjoyed the character development.

Grace Reilly can do no wrong and this book was just absolute romantic perfection. I love the mixed sports aspect it just adds to the fun of the characters and their dynamic. I just fell in love with the story from the first chapter and everything I love about Graces writing was in this book from beginning to end. The narrators were perfection for the characters and forever engrained in my brain as them.

This book had me BLUSHING. Nik had me blushing. I wasn’t expecting to love the russian accent so much but the male narrator killed it with this. I was so deeply invested in their story and it really felt like the perfect ending to this series. The epilogue made me want to sob

I was so looking forward to this one as I loved all the Callahan brothers. This one felt different. The writing seemed forced. There was less humour. I didn't connect with the characters as much. The audio performances were good, but I found myself picking it up and putting it down again.

A spicy brother's rival hockey romance? Umm, yes please!

I have not read the other books in this series but that did not matter one bit as I was immediately transported into this steamy college setting.

I am sometimes creeped out by new adult spicy romances but this one did not focus on age and youth, making that just a fact instead of the center of the book.

The narrators were EXCELLENT and the Russian accent was perfection.

Thank you to Net Galley and Spotify Audio for the audioARC!

I will start this one stating I'm glad I had this one in audio because I'm not sure I would have finished it if was in print. Nik and Izzy are a second chance, sports, spicy (sort of), college story. Nik gets in trouble at his previous school and his grandfather pulls strings and gets him transferred and now he is on a team where his rival is the captain and just happens to be the brother of the fling he had the previous summer. Izzy wants nothing more than to get back where she was on the volleyball team but her coach is doing everything in her power to keep her down. When she crosses paths with Nik on campus all bets are off and BAM they start back up again. Hockey and volleyball and family and lots of a lot happening to get to the end.

The fourth and final book in the Beyond the Play series follows Isabelle and Nik, a hockey player on her brother’s rival team, who have a summer found that ends, but is quickly rekindled when Nik has to transfer to the university is at.

This was such a huge disappointment. I loved be first two books in the series and really didn’t like this third, I sadly dislike this almost as much. I was really excited to read this as I liked Izzy in the previous three books. But there were so many issues with this. It’s way too long for starters and so boring. I had this on audiobook and legitimately could not make it through even 5% with the horrible fake Russian accent the male narrator had. It was so bad it was comical. As the author wrote in the book, Russian can be a beautiful and sexy language. This was a joke.

So I picked up a physical copy and went from there. For me the problems started with the complete lack of tension between Izzy and Nik. Because they had already been together, there was no will they won’t they lead up. They basically hook up almost right away after seeing each other and then go from there. Since there were no flashback scenes to when they met or how they got together, the chemistry and tension from the beginning of their relationship was nonexistent and it just didn’t work for me. They didn’t have enough of a deep emotional connection throughout the story to make up for that. I truly don’t think this often in books, but I really believe that Izzy and Nik would not be together in real life, I don’t really understand what they see in each other and even if they got together, I don’t see how they’d ever actually stay together. Izzy comes off as very privileged but in an almost negative way? She’s a tad irresponsible, immature and just kind of takes all the hand outs. Nik was fine, but really needed therapy from the beginning of the story and I don’t like how Izzy was upset about that.

This took me so long to get through, and my complaints continue. I don’t see why they couldn’t be together for so long, dumb reasons, especially because the fallout is so mild once they are together and it’s revealed. The spice was fine but I thought the parallel of rough sex and physical abuse concerns in this was odd, I didn’t know what to make of that. Nik taking over the company and the reasons for that we’re also dumb, again, because it switched so quickly. I don’t even know what this was really disposed to be about? I guess them overcoming their own issues? There were some super cringe worthy lines in here that I couldn’t get over including: “His seed is inside me.” Gross. And referring to her as his “blue eyed angel”, cue the eye roll. The run in with her ex and him calling her a fridge bitch, with everyone then puffing their chests out also was so predictable and unnecessary, cringe worthy again. Nik spitting on the floor of his fathers feet?? Nik setting up an entire apartment and buying clothes for her without even talking to her?? So weird. Anyways, this was a very disappointing end to this series which sucks. There was nothing original about this story at all. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free preview in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book—it was cute, wholesome, and the unexpected spice was a fun surprise! My only issue was that it felt a bit long but I'll definitely be checking out the other books in this series now. (I will also note, I received an ALC but was not able to listen to the audiobook and had to read the ebook instead since the male narrator's accent made it a bit hard to understand what he was saying.)

I thought this was an easy and fun read. This definitely isn't the book for you if you don't like smut.
I enjoyed the banter between the hockey players and felt that Isabelle's torment on not feeling adequate for her family was highly relatable. Overall, I would recommend this to other adults to read because despite the innocent looking cover, this book is not appropriate for younger kids.