Review + Excerpt: Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan

Long Shot by Kennedy Ryan
Series: Standalone Novel
Published by Self Published on 3/20/18
Genres: Sports Romance
Pages: 460
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A FORBIDDEN LOVE SET IN THE EXPLOSIVE WORLD OF THE NBA...

Think you know what it's like being a baller's girl?
You don't.
My fairy tale is upside down.
A happily never after.
I kissed the prince and he turned into a fraud.
I was a fool, and his love - fool's gold.

Now there's a new player in the game, August West.
One of the NBA's brightest stars.
Fine. Forbidden.
He wants me. I want him.
But my past, my fraudulent prince, just won't let me go.

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Jessica’s Review

5 “This Was Everything” Stars!

I had one OMG, WTF, HOLY CRAP, NO WAY, OH DEAR JESUS moment after another as I read this book. Kennedy Ryan creates an unputdownable, unpredictable, turbulent sports romance with Long Shot and I was transfixed. My chin hit the floor repeatedly. I was infuriated over and over again. My soul was crushed. My hope was dashed. I was enamored by a forbidden attraction. I was tortured by longing and terror and the unfairness of it all. I fell hard and fast for a basketball player named August West. And I was swept up in a story that will undoubtedly haunt me for months to come. And that was just the first 25%!

The romance in this book is the slow burning, forbidden kind. Long Shot follows the fierce, complicated attraction simmering between a baller and a girl– a girl who belongs to his nemesis both on and off the court. Please don’t let that scare you off. Take a shot on this story. This isn’t the kind of love triangle you’ve ever read before. This is a tangled web of madness and lust, of fear and hope, of right and wrong. Long Shot is intense and while it’s sometimes hard to read, it’s also IMPOSSIBLE to put down. It’s brutal and devastating and romantic and it sends a profoundly important message that must not be ignored. This is a story that will haunt you. This is fiction, but it’s the all too relevant sort of fiction, the kind you can’t shake off even after turning the final page. With Kennedy Ryan’s words flowing as beautifully as this addictive story does, you’re treated to a captivating, unforgettable romance that will blow your mind and steal your breath away.

Long Shot is twisted. Sometimes it’s the good kind of twisty, the kind where an unpredictable love story makes your heart lurch. The kind of twisty that won’t let you catch your breath before you’re inundated with another barrage of unexpected emotion, with infuriating angst, with fiery passion. It’s twisted in the way that the bottom keeps dropping out beneath you, where the curveballs and plot twists are relentless, where you have no idea how this story will end. But sometimes it’s the bad kind of twisted. The dark and twisted kind of story that hurts to read, where it quite literally makes you sick at times. It’s the kind of twisted that makes a story so good because it hurts so bad. It kills. This story killed. It’s so hard for me to say that a story is FANTASTIC when it deals with such difficult subject matter, but that is EXACTLY what makes it such a phenomenal book. Long Shot is a difficult pill to swallow but the journey is worth it. It’s necessary. It’s important. Take the shot.

Kennedy Ryan demands the reader feel everything, both the brutally horrific and the blissfully romantic, and she weaves it all together in this riveting, complex story that I loved with every fiber of my being. Long Shot is all these twisted things wrapped up in the most lush writing and I just couldn’t take it. I wanted out of this book as much I never wanted it to end. It’s twisted, these emotions I was made to feel, the events that unfold on these pages, but it’s all tangled together so perfectly. This is one powerful storyline, one brilliant romance. It’s a MUST READ sports romance layered in heartache and steamy sensuality. It’s a harrowing ordeal, a horrific account, a blissful romance, all woven together with the promise of hope in the end. Just do yourself a favor: take the shot.

Excerpt

“Iris?” August’s frown, the concern on his face, in his voice, remind me where I am. “Baby, you okay?”
I blink down at him dumbly, swallowing my tears, eating my memories whole and digesting a nightmare from long ago. I nod, my lips a cold, wobbly curve.
“Kiss me,” he whispers, his eyes so tender, so intent.
I remember a magical night under the stars, under a streetlight on the eve of greatness. A night filled with laughter and confidences, pregnant with promise. And I see him so clearly, my prince, asking for a kiss.
And I do.
I kiss him like the world might end tonight because I’ll never take this for granted. Not his kindness, when I’ve known cruelty all too well. Not his tenderness, when I’ve been handled roughly in the past. Not his love, when I’ve been possessed and owned and mistreated.
He thaws me with his kiss, my prince, and I melt into him. We’re chest to chest, with August’s number crushed between us. I take his cock in my hand, aligning our bodies, and two become one in a carnal slide of flesh. I anchor myself by my elbows hooked around his neck, and we kiss until I’m dizzy and our breaths tangle in a cloud of bliss. Under the jersey, his palm spans my back, digging into the naked flesh as our hips lock and roll and grind. My body clenches around him, and we pray, we curse, we moan, we mate like our bodies were made for this moment.
Ours is a love that reimagines—that peels back the sky at high noon searching for the stars, collecting them like shells in a bucket. We bathe in stardust, drink from the Milky Way, and dance on the moon. We pierce the firmament, peer into infinity, and tread on time and space. There is no before. There is no after. Now gives birth to forever. This moment may die, but this love never will. Time is not a line. It’s a circle, and we, August and Iris, we stand at the center.

About the Author

Kennedy Ryan is a Southern girl gone Southern California. A Top 100 Amazon Bestseller, Kennedy writes romance about remarkable women who thrive even in tough times, the love they find, and the men who cherish them.

She is a wife to her lifetime lover and mother to an extraordinary son. She has always leveraged her journalism background to write for charity and non-profit organizations, but enjoys writing to raise Autism awareness most. A contributor for Modern Mom Magazine, Kennedy’s writings have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, USA Today and many others. The founder and executive director of a foundation serving Atlanta families living with Autism, she has appeared on Headline News, Montel Williams, NPR and other media outlets as an advocate for families living with autism.

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