The Perfectly Imperfect Match by Kendra C. Highley

Pitcher Dylan Dennings has his future all mapped out: make the minors straight out of high school, work his way up the farm system, and get called up to the majors by the time he's twenty-three. The Plan has been his sole focus for years, and if making his dreams come true means instituting a strict " no girls" policy, so be it.

Lucy Foster, needlepoint ninja, big sister to an aspiring pitcher, and chicken advocate, likes a little mayhem. So what if she gets lost taking her brother to baseball camp...at her own high school? The pitching coach, some hotshot high school player, obviously thinks she's a hot mess. Too bad he's cute, because he's so not her type.

Problem is, they keep running into each other, and every interaction sparks hotter than the last. But with Dylan's future on the line, he has to decide whether some rules are made to be broken...

Disclaimer: This book contains a crazy night of moonlit skinny-dipping, a combustible crush, and kisses swoony enough to unwind even the most Type A athlete.

Each book in the Suttonville Sentinels series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed out of order.

Book 3
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo
Entangled Publishing

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
5 Swoon-worthy Stars (okay, Highley, where are my unicorns? Just proving I read the note at the end. LOL)

The Perfectly Imperfect Match is the third installment of Suttonville Sentinels, and can easily be read as a standalone. While the hero and heroine from book two do make an appearance on the pages, their previous story doesn't make an impact on the current one. Although, I was happy to see them, reconnect with them.

If you're not reading this as a standalone, you no doubt will remember Dylan. Uptight. Obsessed with his future plans, to the point he isn't living in the now. He's hitched all of his dreams, hopes, and aspirations with singular focus, to the point it's unhealthy and could be a detriment should things not go according to plan.

Fate and destiny and things happen, just because you plan it or want it, doesn't make it so. This is a lesson Dylan needs to learn, and in a way that doesn't leave lasting damage.

Dylan's an amazing pitcher, but he's even better at teaching the next generation of ballplayers during summer camp, which leads us to Lucy...

Lucy is an interesting character. Free-spirit, chicken savior, and colorful rebel. She's the daughter of a serviceman who is deployed and a quilt shop owner. To help her family, Lucy stitches/embroiders various items to bring in side money and bring new clientele into the shop, all the while helping raise her nine-year-old brother.

Otis enrolls in summer camp – the budding pitcher is placed under the tutelage of Dylan, and that's how Dylan and Lucy meet.

Opposites attract.

Without giving a book report, the pair have some angsty bumps and bruises along the way. There's heat and intensity, bucket loads of chemistry. Dylan has a 'no girls' policy, and fears Lucy is throwing him off his game. Lucy is worried about Otis' relationship with his pitching coach, so she doesn't want to come between her baby brother and his idol.

The Perfectly Imperfect Match was a delightfully sweet read, full of crushing and budding love, and it put a smile on my face. Until the epilogue – boom – emotional extortion by the author. Mad props to Highley for making me cry (happy tears, of course).

Definitely recommend to lovers of the Young Adult genre, no matter if they are actual young adults or the young at heart. I look forward to more in this series and more by this author.

*I will say, from my own experience, grown men and boys alike do believe the 'no girls' nonsense. My grandfather, who was old enough to be my great-grandfather, was always bringing up failure in the baseball world due to his son getting a girlfriend – (I can't remember what team he played for) unable to be apart from her, he made her his wife and had children. Blaming my aunt, of course. Is it true? I have no idea – it was a generation or three before my time, but adult me knows the misogynistic blame-game is a great way to explain away what really happened. But boys and men do believe that nonsense, so I could relate to both Dylan and Lucy as I read the book and it brought up the memory of my grandfather, enough so I could even hear his voice.

Swoon – still waiting on those unicorns.

Young Adult age-range: 12+. Kissing and adult language.


Jordan – ☆☆☆☆
The Perfectly Imperfect Match is book #3 in Kendra C. Highley's Suttonville Sentinels series and just as addictive as her first, Swinging at Love. You can easily read these as a standalone, but Swinging at Love, book #2, is totally worth a read for any young adult romance fan. Highley will easily draw you in with her swoon worthy characters and keep you turning the pages all night!

Book #3 follows the story of Dylan Dennings, pitcher for the Suttonville Sentinels, who has his whole future mapped out and doesn't plan to let anything steer him off course. Dylan's determined to make it to the minors straight out of high school, which is why he has a "no girls" policy. Unfortunately, he keeps running into Lucy Foster, needlepoint extraordinaire, and his polar opposite, but he can't seem to get her out of his head...

If you're looking for your next book for the beach look no further! Highley has a home run with her Suttonville Sentinels series. I'm absolutely loving these books and I can't wait to see what's in store for book #4! Another fantastic YA read by Kendra C. Highley! 4 stars

Also Available in the Suttonville Sentinels Series

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

For reviews & more info, check out our The Bad Boy Bargain post.

Book 2
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

For reviews & more info, check out our Swinging at Love post.

Kendra C. Highley lives in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to four self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her most critical job. She believes in everyday magic, extraordinary love stories, and the restorative powers of dark chocolate.

Connect with Kendra

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Google+  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of The Perfectly Imperfect Match (Suttonville Sentinels #3) by Kendra C. Highley to read and review.

Swinging at Love by Kendra C. Highley

Outfielder Tristan Murrell has a problem. As the number two slugger for the Suttonville Sentinels, his team is counting on him to make their very first run at the state championship. But he has a secret—his swing has totally deserted him. As in, he can’t hit anything. He needs to fix the issue, and fast, but how?

Ballerina Alyssa Kaplan has a problem, too. The shiny new sports complex in town has left her family’s batting cage business on the verge of going under. Nailing her audition for a prestigious dance company is everything, but there’s no way she’s letting her some shiny big-box company destroy her family’s livelihood.

Tristan needs a miracle. So does Alyssa. And maybe, just maybe, Tristan’s secret weapon might be the girl of his dreams...

Disclaimer: This book contains hot, shirtless baseball players, kisses that bring a ballerina to her knees, and a lot of baseball smack-talk.

Book 2
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
The adult in me is rating 4 stars. However, I do believe actual young adults will find this book impossible to put down, with all the addictive, page-turning elements (tropes) on the pages.

Welcome back to Suttonville, where last we readers enjoyed Kyle and Faith's relationship grow. In this installment in the series, their friends get a chance at budding romance.

Alyssa, or Chickadee ('Dee) as her father calls her, is a hard-working, driven, and dedicated girl. She's a good student, a ballet dancer, and an ex-softball player. She works at her father's ailing/failing business round-the-clock. Swing Away, which has batting cages for big and small ballplayers. She's a supportive friend, to the point she usually allows them to walk all over her, which I did find a contradiction to her personality.

Tristan is a ballplayer with a problem. He's so stressed out from the upcoming championship, with the need to not let his team down, his swing is way off. He's lost his mojo. Instead of going to the new mega complex to bat, the one all the town and his teammates visit, he heads to Swing Away in private.

This is the setup for Alyssa and Tristan to meet. She helps him 'slow down' his game, relax, and unexpectedly find love.

What I enjoyed most about this novel, other than Alyssa and Tristan, is how the family members are all realistic and present in the lives of their children. More often than not in young adult novels, we see the children raising themselves, or raising their parents, as the conflict. Not this time around, and I applaud the author for the realism.

One of the morals of the story is stress, stress both young adults and adults alike can identify with. Alyssa is stressed about getting into dance camp, and Swing Away failing. Tristan is stressed about being so perfect, he's messing up. The kids are stressing about their friends. The parents have very real fears/stressors about losing a business that is tied to their home as well. It was realistic, with a good moral, showing how working through all the stress, dealing with it, is far better than hiding from it while you wait for it to pass.

Another moral is for teens, but I do believe adults should have a listen. Crushes, we've all been there. You may have never even spoken to your crush, but you feel a sense of ownership to him/her, and you place your stamp on the them, and if your friends try to date your crush, they are a bad friend. We see it as loyalty/disloyal. But we don't see the crush as a human being with a say in it. A relationship is between two people, and you're not entitled to the crush, just because you want them. What do you like, other than vapid things, if you've never even spoken to this person? There's a good chance you won't get along, and a greater chance your friend will. It's wrong to be controlling of both your friend and a stranger, as if you have a say in their dating life. I liked how the author focused on this, as Tristan and Alyssa's best friends both called dibs, not even knowing their crush's name, causing pain for all around.

This is where I go into what I didn't quite enjoy, where it didn't quite work, as it ties to above. The pacing is fantastic, a real page-turner. It's quick and easy to fall into the story, with likable, realistic characters. It's on the verge of insta-love, but in a cute, warm your heart way. But it felt concluded early on, then drawn out with a conflict I felt wasn't a conflict at all. Miscommunication is a pet-peeve of mine, in imagination-land and in real life. But at least it wasn't between Alyssa and Tristan (once it was – a tiny blip I knew was coming).

The miscommunication was between the best friends, calling dibs on crushes when they'd never spoken to them and didn't know their names. This caused our lovebirds to stay a secret, instead of manning up about it. It wasn't really a conflict, and it highlighted how bizarre/wrong it is to place a stamp of ownership on another human being just because you like how they look and their social standing. Bit of a mean girls situation played out, but I'm glad it was shown in a light young adults would learn from.

I was unsure how Alyssa's BFF had a complete 180 so quickly, it was out of character. But Dylan was in his character. So while I can appreciate what was on the pages, the story of Tristan and Alyssa felt complete by the 20% mark in the book, when it's usually a journey between the couple.

Swinging at Love was cute, heartwarming, a bit over-the-top at the ending, yet realistic the rest of the time. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it in a heartbeat. I look forward to more in this series, and more by this author. Kendra C. Highley is becoming one of my favorite YA authors.

Young adult age-range: 13+. Kissing. Mild Swearing. PG with 17-year-old narrators.

Also Available in the Suttonville Sentinels Series

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

For reviews & more info, check out our The Bad Boy Bargain post.

Kendra C. Highley lives in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to four self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her most critical job. She believes in everyday magic, extraordinary love stories, and the restorative powers of dark chocolate.

Connect with Kendra

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Google+  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Swinging at Love (Suttonville Sentinels #2) by Kendra C. Highley to read and review.

The Bad Boy Bargain by Kendra C. Highley

Baseball player Kyle Sawyer has many labels: bad boy, delinquent, ladies’ man, fearless outfielder… Only one of them is actually true. But then sweet ballet dancer Faith Gladwell asks him to help wreck her reputation, and everything goes sideways.

Faith knows a thing or two about love, and what she had with her cheating jerk of an ex wasn’t it. When he starts spreading rumors about her being an Ice Queen, Faith decides it’s time to let a little bad into her life.

Lucky for her, Kyle Sawyer—dark, dangerous, totally swoonworthy Kyle Sawyer—is landscaping her backyard over Spring Break. Shirtless. And if she can convince him to play along, “dating” Kyle will silence the rumors.

But Faith’s plan threatens to expose Sawyer’s biggest secret of all…and that’s a risk he’s not willing to take.

Disclaimer: This book contains drop-the-book-and-fan-yourself kisses...and touches. Fall in love with a bad boy at your own risk.

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
5 Delicious Stars.

Entangled Crush books always put me in a good mood, and The Bad Boy Bargain most definitely lived up to its publisher. Nothing like an injection of feel-good innocence to make this pessimistic, grown woman believe in the warmth of budding young love.

The very first thing I want to address is the fact that I could feel how much Faith and Kyle took over Kendra C. Highley. The characters chose their story vs the author using the plot to herd them where she wanted them to go. Evolving organically, it was obvious by the pure chemistry pouring from the pages how much the author was writing the story the characters demanded to tell.

Young Adult or Adult, it's impossible not to blush and smile at how Faith and Kyle were feeling one another all throughout the book. It wasn't insta-love/lust, just appreciation that grew into friendship, and eventually grew into love.

Banter. Flirting. Their true personalities glowed when they were together out of mutual respect and trust.

Faith is a good girl – a good student, a good daughter, a good friend, and a determined dancer/singer. She believes in true love and not bending to a boyfriend who just wants something from her. She doesn't cave, but she has a boyfriend with octopus hands and a disappointed expression – a boyfriend she's determined to drop.

After an event that feels like a kick in the teeth, then spirals into something even more disgusting, Faith's current boyfriend becomes her ex. She seeks not vengeance but justice.

Kyle has a bad boy image – untouchable, doesn't date high school girls, has a bad rep, maybe even a rap-sheet. But all that is just a facade hiding the real Kyle beneath. A bullied kid who uses his rep as a shield against the very guy who is tarnishing Faith's good girl image.

Together, the perceived bad boy and the good girl join forces to put their mutual bully/ex in his place – sparks fly and real emotions are felt.

Proof the reader doesn't need a bunch of bells and whistles (shock-value) to elicit emotions within the reader while providing a burst of angst... Kyle was an amazing character who knew what he wanted to do and loved every minute of it, as did Faith – truly good people who I'm so happy found what they were looking for.

Besides that, the side characters offered just as much entertainment value. Faith's friend, Violet, I'd love to beg Highley to write us a novel featuring her as a narrator, perhaps with Kyle's buddy (pretty please?!?).

Proving not all young adult novels have ghosts/'ought to lose their children to CPS' for parents, Faith's parents were awesome, understanding, and all-around great people. Kyle's family was unique, being raised by his granddad and dad, both of which were equally different. Granddad was a hoot!

With refreshingly realistic characters, a good foundation and moral to the story, I highly recommend The Bad Boy Bargain to young adults and adults who want to remember the first stirrings of a crush.

Young Adult age-range: 14+ due to sexual situations (fade-to-black & kissing)

Kendra C. Highley lives in north Texas with her husband and two children. She also serves as staff to four self-important and high-powered cats. This, according to the cats, is her most critical job. She believes in everyday magic, extraordinary love stories, and the restorative powers of dark chocolate.

Connect with Kendra

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Google+  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of The Bad Boy Bargain (Suttonville Sentinels #1) by Kendra C. Highley to read and review.