If Only You | Review

Ziggy

I’m the youngest player on the National Soccer team, the baby of my family, and thoroughly sick of being underestimated, so I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. Which is where my brother’s best friend and teammate, the infamous Sebastian Marchand, comes in. 

Seb needs to rehab his reputation. I want to give mine an edge. So I propose a fake friendship with real benefits: spending time in the public eye, my good-girl image and his bad-boy notoriety rubbing off on each other. He’s my devious, dark-haired fantasy come to life, but his destructive ways make it easy to keep him in the (fake) friend zone. Or so I thought, until I start to see the heart of gold he’s been hiding beneath that sinister surface…

Sebastian

Like any self-respecting reprobate, I’ve been spiraling downward, and finally I’ve hit rock bottom. My hockey career and sponsorships are in jeopardy, and while I’m not ready to actually reform my ways, I’m happy to pretend that I have, to secure the life I’m on the brink of losing. 

So when my best friend’s sister, Ziggy Bergman, proposes a public “friendship” to revamp our reputations, it’s an offer I can’t refuse. Up till now, I’ve stayed away from Ren’s sweet, shy little sister to avoid any risk of ruining my one good friendship. But I reassure myself there’s no risk in our scheme. I’ll fake a friendship with Ziggy, fix my reputation, and get back to hockey, the one and only thing I love. At least, it was, until what began as a transactional arrangement became the most loving relationship I’ve ever known.

Two professional athletes in one relationship? Yes yes yes. I loved this book and I loved these characters.

Seb was giving majoy Roy Kentt vibes. He was an angry, grumpy, mess of a man and I loved him! Particularly, seeing his change throughout the book was really nice. Ziggy changed a bit as well, but the majority of the development was through him.

Ziggy is our Bergman baby. I’m so happy we finally got to her story, but that also means we’re getting down to the end of our wonderful family. I’m not ready to say goodbye to them yet.

Onto the romance! There was lots of pining, a nice little slow burn, and a bit of bad boy/good girl vibes. As well, there was lots of beautiful healing, as I’ve come to expect and love from Liese’s books. We see a lot of Seb and Ziggy encouraging each other to be better without them actually saying it to each other. It’s more of a they want to be better for the other person.

There wasn’t as much drama or conflict as I’d hoped. I needed more action! The whole publicity thing felt like it just sputtered out after a little while. I wanted something a little more to keep things moving along.

Overall, this was another great installment in the Bergman Brothers series. I am both looking forward to and dreading Viggo’s book. I’m really not ready for the end.

Rating

To check out my other reviews, click here. Or to check out more books by Chloe Liese, go to her Goodreads profile or visit her website.