Lovestruck

Name: Lovestruck
Author: Celeste Briars

122 pages

Staten Renault is the epitome of all things nerdy. Her love life is nonexistent, her social life could use some much-needed TLC, and she’s sacrificed everything to enroll at Minnesota’s most prestigious college. As the self-proclaimed scholarship kid in a small town full of trust fund babies, she makes it her goal to fit in with her peers. Underpaid and overworked, it’s no surprise that she also suffers from a lovelorn heart, specifically when it involves her best friend, Leif Kennedy. Staten is too shy to make the first move, and Leif is as oblivious as they come. She’s content with living out the rest of her college years pining from afar, until one hockey-player-shaped catalyst pushes them closer than ever.

Enter Knox Mulligan—the resident playboy of the Minnesota Mustangs’ hockey team, the child of Maple Grove’s wealthiest benefactors, and the boy who couldn’t be more different from Staten. He’s all bite and bark and irresistible innuendos. However, despite the unshakable façade that he puts on for everyone, he’s struggling to hold himself together. With a Lit grade on the verge of tanking and his hockey status in jeopardy, Knox needs to find a tutor as soon as possible. Call it fate or some misguided dice roll, but the only person who can help him is the girl who sits behind him in English class, and the girl he just so happened to have accidentally hit with his Lamborghini.

After a messy meet-cute, Staten is more than happy to cut ties right then and there, until Knox’s perseverance and surprising moral compass keeps him trapped in her orbit. He needs a tutor, she needs the money, and she also needs a mentor with a PhD in flirting. Knox knows just how to sweet-talk his way into the bedroom, and guilt—or desire—pushes him to offer his services to one best friend-obsessed Staten. Bad blood aside, the two need each other more than they’re willing to admit. But, when late-night study sessions turn into secret rendezvouses, they realize that their preliminary goals may have just taken a turn for the worse. Feelings were never a part of the itinerary, nor were they a previous point of contention for the romantically challenged virgin and the campus-wide Casanova. With Staten torn between who to give her heart to, Knox realizes that for the first time ever, his competition lies off the ice.
Will Staten realize that Knox is the puzzle piece she’s missing from her conundrum of a love life, or will internal differences and an unrequited crush keep the two of them apart?

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