Jordan dreams of playing professional soccer. The chance to play for a top US college sends her out of her native Australia and on a course to play professionally, if she can finish her senior year strong and make the cut at the pro level. 
 Brody has NFL dreams and lives up the life of big man on campus as one of his school's star players. 
 This is not a whirlwind romance that spans a few months from meeting to marriage. No. This is a story that spans a good part of the lives of the main characters. It is long. But it is written in such a way that there is always something going on; there is always movement to the storyline. 
 There is also a great message throughout the book. The characters struggle with self-confidence in a unique way. For someone who spends so much time being applauded, and seems to have it all, Brody has a hard time believing he deserves what he has, believing he can accomplish his goals, believing he can follow through. I ached reading the struggles he faced. 
 Jordan has an immense inner strength. Moving overseas and remaining focused on her studies and career goals, she didn't expect how Brody would change her. But she knew what she wanted, even as she struggled with how to adjust her plans to include the man she had fallen in love with, or if she should continue on as planned after college. 
 This story is far more than football and soccer, but I love how the sports push and pull the characters and exist as that initial bridge between them. But I also love the other traits that are exposed as commonalities and connections. 
 There were a few times the timeline and events threw me for a loop. The way it unfolds, key scenes are told in hindsight rather than as they happened and that shift made the resulting twists even more unexpected. 
 This book kept me enthralled through it's entirety. The range of emotions I felt as Jordan and Brody met, completed college and faced their future should not have surprised me as much as it did. Kate McCarthy never fails to entertain me with her stories and challenge me with her characters and this was no exception. But I was surprised to find that range within what looked like a regular sports novel. 
 I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review.