An Exquisite Good Girl/Bad Boy Slow Burn, Sports Romance
5
If Only You Book Cover If Only You
The Bergman Brothers
Chloe Liese
Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance, Romantic Comedy
Berkley
February 20, 2024
ebook, paperback, audiobook
384

A longtime good girl and unapologetic bad boy score the love of their life when they least expect to in this swoony, slow-burn sports romance.

Ziggy Bergman is tired of being underestimated. Sure, she’s the youngest player on the National Soccer team and the baby of the family, but that doesn’t mean she still deserves to be treated like a kid. It’s time for her angelic image to get a makeover. What better way to do that than hanging out with trouble incarnate and her brother’s best friend, Sebastian Gauthier?

Sebastian has hit rock bottom. His hockey career and sponsorships are in jeopardy of ending if something doesn’t give. Seb’s not willing to actually change his destructive ways, but he’s happy to pretend he’s a reformed reprobate by faking a friendship for publicity with sweet, shy Ziggy Bergman.

When faking starts to feel real, Ziggy and Seb discover an unexpected friendship they’re happy to hold on to. At least, until their once-fake friendship becomes the most loving, empowering relationship they’ve ever known, and the end goal—for both of them—changes.

I know I’ve outgrown the labels I used to wear, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what I want to put on now, what will feel right.

I absolutely adore authors like Chloe Liese who can create characters, storylines, and series that become familiar, safe spaces for readers. If Only You is the sixth book in the Bergman Brothers series but is the second of two stories centered around a Bergman sister and the bad boy brother’s best friend that can’t seem to keep out of the gossip pages for all the wrong reasons.

Sigrid, affectionately known as Ziggy, is our main character, and is ready to break out of the box in which her family as safely ensconced her since she was still in grade school.  She’s the youngest player on the Women’s National Soccer Team, and yet she still sits with her niece at the family dinner table. Determined to make her teammates, her family, and the general public take her more seriously, Ziggy decides the one person who can help her is the one who needs a little rebranding himself: Sebastian Gauthier.

“Everyone deserves to have someone in their corner who believes the best in them even when they’re at their worst.”

Sebastian’s problems are not all centered around Ziggy Bergman, but her quiet determination really challenges him in all the right ways. Not only is she the little sister of teammate and best friend, Ren Bergman, she’s been the figment of all his wildest dreams. Rehabbing his image is key to keeping his job, but spending time with Ziggy becomes a lesson in self-reflection that he wasn’t ready for until she lost her underwear at a wedding reception.

If Only You is the slowburn romance that doesn’t exactly read like one. There’s so much romance that unfurls with each interaction between Seb and Ziggy. The kindness and earnestness of both characters  in regard to the other made me swoon. Did I realize that a bad boy hockey player reciting Shakespeare would be a turn on? No, I did not, but I’m here for it! These characters are neurodiverse, they struggle with mental health, with chronic illness, with self-esteem, with trust in relationships, and with the burden of growing up with childhood trauma and then learning to accept love without conditions. All of these reasons are why Chloe Liese writes such phenomenal stories. Anyone can find themselves in one of her characters, and then see the commonality between us all. A true gift in romance today.

I’ve never been this close to something this unspeakably good. I have never wanted more to be worthy of it.

Ziggy and Seb stole my heart, and I guarantee that if you give If Only You a chance, they will steal yours as well.