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Sarah and Alyssa were rivals who became so much more.
Swimming and winning. That's all Alyssa's life was about. It was all so simple until she met Sarah. Sarah who she should hate. Sarah her oldest rival. Sarah who she can't stop thinking about.
Alyssa never had time for love, but what can she do when love dives into the water right next to her?
Sarah dreamed of a state swim title her entire life, and she was crushed when her chance at the big dance was stolen. Only what started as a simple rivalry will become so much more as she realizes she can't stop thinking about Alyssa, and they're going to the same college next fall.
As she realizes she just might be falling for a girl.
Two young women in the prime of their life. Two young women falling in love. Two young women who will be tested as Alyssa is struck with a terrible sickness and finds herself fighting for her life while Sarah finds herself fighting Alyssa's crazy family so she can be with her girlfriend at a time when Alyssa needs her the most.
No one ever said love was easy.
Swimming and winning. That's all Alyssa's life was about. It was all so simple until she met Sarah. Sarah who she should hate. Sarah her oldest rival. Sarah who she can't stop thinking about.
Alyssa never had time for love, but what can she do when love dives into the water right next to her?
Sarah dreamed of a state swim title her entire life, and she was crushed when her chance at the big dance was stolen. Only what started as a simple rivalry will become so much more as she realizes she can't stop thinking about Alyssa, and they're going to the same college next fall.
As she realizes she just might be falling for a girl.
Two young women in the prime of their life. Two young women falling in love. Two young women who will be tested as Alyssa is struck with a terrible sickness and finds herself fighting for her life while Sarah finds herself fighting Alyssa's crazy family so she can be with her girlfriend at a time when Alyssa needs her the most.
No one ever said love was easy.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 15, 2016
41 people are currently reading
186 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 3, 2021
Do you know, I really loved this book - PG only, which was a relief after Jae Hawkins - told a really good story really well. Short, yes, but perfectly formed. A WTF mum - do they really exist? I write knowing, tragically, they do - I lived this book. Thank you. Stood up well to second reading.
February 5, 2017
This book here is the fifth book that I have read with Mia Archer’s name on it.
This is a book with some youngish main characters. I assume that they are right around the age of 18, though a specific age (I don’t think) is not actually mentioned.
Sarah and Alyssa have spent most of their lives competing and training to be competitive swimmers. They’ve gotten up at the crack of ‘too early’ to go swimming; practice sometimes twice a day; one also lifts weight to add whatever that might add to being able to pull herself through the water with stronger arms (I think that is Sarah).
Both young women are super competitive and super good. They are about a half second or a second off of each other’s times – which would be great if they didn’t compete in the same division – as only one from their section/division can go to ‘state’ (ever since Glee, I kind of giggle when people talk super serious about ‘sectionals’ and ‘state’ and the like; they could be models/singers/football players, but still, that little giggle comes up).
The book opens on the big old qualifying event for the State level races. Sarah thinks it is her year. Alyssa thinks she will win. Everyone, apparently, believes that the person that will win will either be Sarah or Alyssa.
Sarah’s parents are old school liberal and quit easy going. Alyssa’s mother is a massive over controlling bitch. Her father is kind of okay, though. This becomes important for ‘reasons’.
The book synopsis on GoodReads kind of gives things away in terms of who won at sections, but I’ll live off mentioning that.
One or the other won. The other took it hard and cried. The one that won comforted her (all this is, in its way, spoiler, but it is also the foundation of the relationship that develops from here on out).
The one who lost the race goes out of their way to drive many miles to the State level event. To act as a supporter for the other. Recall something that can’t be recalled since I haven’t mentioned it yet – both were rivals of each other. A certain amount of ‘hate’ might have even been bubbling. Which is where I’m uncertain if I should call this ‘fell for rival’ or ‘fell for friend’. Since they were rivals, but no part of the time they were rivals (on a ‘we hate each other’ level) occurs in this book. And they went from rivals to friends, then to that ‘falling for’ part. *shrugs*
Unknown to either, both have full ride scholarships to the same college, so while one or the other (or both, I forget now) might have some worries about whether this event, or that, might be the last time they see the other, they soon realize that they will have a good chance to see each other for a good longish while. Barring unforeseen complications that could have access/communication/scholarship complications.
So, fairly quickly, the book turns to these high schoolers moving from high school to the summer between graduation and college – which they spend at college, because athletes report early for training.
There’s kind of love-hate thing that occurs in waves. I’d say almost immediately, but then love doesn’t come immediately. Hate does though. But not what someone might be thinking – no, I’m referring to the hate between Tiffany and Sarah. Mostly from Tiffany to Sarah. I’m being deliberately something . . um . . not vague, because I’m using names, well like vague. Tiffany is Alyssa’s mother.
From almost the beginning of the book a certain complication is shown, foreshadowed (well, two, the first being that the mother is a bitch and that isn’t going to go away). That being some mysterious ‘waves of dizziness/light headness’ experienced by Alyssa. By the half way point the dreaded ‘word’ gets used to explain things, but as the synopsis itself doesn’t go beyond saying ‘terrible sickness’ I’ll refrain from explaining in detail the specific ‘terrible sickness’.
Right, so, this is a coming of age/coming out/young adult/major life alternating illness book with a heavy dose of family drama book. Involving two athletes (swimmers) just starting off on the road of life.
For one reason or another books like this, and I mean simply and specifically, those that involves students, never really seem to draw up in my mind memories of the time when I was a student. There is no inherent reason why the high school years in this book would cause any memories to pop up – since that part seems to be over in a flash, and only shows something like a week or three of it – plus it was heavily focused on, to the exclusion of everything else, on swimming. The college part though did, oddly enough, pull up some memories of college. That’s the sum total of my point of mentioning this factoid – books like this do not normally engage my memories, while this one did.
It should be noted, for those coming along behind me, that this book ends at the 80% mark.
July 19 2016
This is a book with some youngish main characters. I assume that they are right around the age of 18, though a specific age (I don’t think) is not actually mentioned.
Sarah and Alyssa have spent most of their lives competing and training to be competitive swimmers. They’ve gotten up at the crack of ‘too early’ to go swimming; practice sometimes twice a day; one also lifts weight to add whatever that might add to being able to pull herself through the water with stronger arms (I think that is Sarah).
Both young women are super competitive and super good. They are about a half second or a second off of each other’s times – which would be great if they didn’t compete in the same division – as only one from their section/division can go to ‘state’ (ever since Glee, I kind of giggle when people talk super serious about ‘sectionals’ and ‘state’ and the like; they could be models/singers/football players, but still, that little giggle comes up).
The book opens on the big old qualifying event for the State level races. Sarah thinks it is her year. Alyssa thinks she will win. Everyone, apparently, believes that the person that will win will either be Sarah or Alyssa.
Sarah’s parents are old school liberal and quit easy going. Alyssa’s mother is a massive over controlling bitch. Her father is kind of okay, though. This becomes important for ‘reasons’.
The book synopsis on GoodReads kind of gives things away in terms of who won at sections, but I’ll live off mentioning that.
One or the other won. The other took it hard and cried. The one that won comforted her (all this is, in its way, spoiler, but it is also the foundation of the relationship that develops from here on out).
The one who lost the race goes out of their way to drive many miles to the State level event. To act as a supporter for the other. Recall something that can’t be recalled since I haven’t mentioned it yet – both were rivals of each other. A certain amount of ‘hate’ might have even been bubbling. Which is where I’m uncertain if I should call this ‘fell for rival’ or ‘fell for friend’. Since they were rivals, but no part of the time they were rivals (on a ‘we hate each other’ level) occurs in this book. And they went from rivals to friends, then to that ‘falling for’ part. *shrugs*
Unknown to either, both have full ride scholarships to the same college, so while one or the other (or both, I forget now) might have some worries about whether this event, or that, might be the last time they see the other, they soon realize that they will have a good chance to see each other for a good longish while. Barring unforeseen complications that could have access/communication/scholarship complications.
So, fairly quickly, the book turns to these high schoolers moving from high school to the summer between graduation and college – which they spend at college, because athletes report early for training.
There’s kind of love-hate thing that occurs in waves. I’d say almost immediately, but then love doesn’t come immediately. Hate does though. But not what someone might be thinking – no, I’m referring to the hate between Tiffany and Sarah. Mostly from Tiffany to Sarah. I’m being deliberately something . . um . . not vague, because I’m using names, well like vague. Tiffany is Alyssa’s mother.
From almost the beginning of the book a certain complication is shown, foreshadowed (well, two, the first being that the mother is a bitch and that isn’t going to go away). That being some mysterious ‘waves of dizziness/light headness’ experienced by Alyssa. By the half way point the dreaded ‘word’ gets used to explain things, but as the synopsis itself doesn’t go beyond saying ‘terrible sickness’ I’ll refrain from explaining in detail the specific ‘terrible sickness’.
Right, so, this is a coming of age/coming out/young adult/major life alternating illness book with a heavy dose of family drama book. Involving two athletes (swimmers) just starting off on the road of life.
For one reason or another books like this, and I mean simply and specifically, those that involves students, never really seem to draw up in my mind memories of the time when I was a student. There is no inherent reason why the high school years in this book would cause any memories to pop up – since that part seems to be over in a flash, and only shows something like a week or three of it – plus it was heavily focused on, to the exclusion of everything else, on swimming. The college part though did, oddly enough, pull up some memories of college. That’s the sum total of my point of mentioning this factoid – books like this do not normally engage my memories, while this one did.
It should be noted, for those coming along behind me, that this book ends at the 80% mark.
July 19 2016
August 7, 2016
I had just read the excellent memoir/novel Girl Hearts Girl by Lucy Sutcliffe, based clearly on a true story of two young women who had a longtime transatlantic relationship, then finally came together blissfully and permanently at the end.
So when Kindle offered me a free read of another lesbian romance, Stay, I immediately downloaded it. This book is evidently one in a series of lesbian romance books by this author. It is pretty awful. Here are some examples of the lush verbiage of this book, and I didn't start counting them until about a quarter of the way through the book:
Someone sighs nine times;
Someone grins 15 times;
Someone frowns six times; and
Someone rolls her eyes 11 times
That is about the range of emotions in this book: not deep nor subtle. "Shallow" is probably the operative word to describe the dialogue.
The story is told from the points of view of two girls who are high school swimming rivals who then fall in love and attend the same college so they can be roommates (wink wink). One of the girls' mothers is a bitch with handles that sniffs just about every quote she is credited with. The two girls' personalities are virtually indistinguishable from the text. One girl gets leukemia and her horrible mother kicks her girlfriend out of her hospital room. Then the sick girl realizes that her girlfriend is more important to her than her mother, and she tells her mother off. The book ends happily.
I didn't realize this was perhaps a YA book or that it was part of a series. It was poorly written, poorly edited, and the author does not know how to use a comma correctly.
Unless you're smitten with romantic books like this, I would avoid it entirely.
So when Kindle offered me a free read of another lesbian romance, Stay, I immediately downloaded it. This book is evidently one in a series of lesbian romance books by this author. It is pretty awful. Here are some examples of the lush verbiage of this book, and I didn't start counting them until about a quarter of the way through the book:
Someone sighs nine times;
Someone grins 15 times;
Someone frowns six times; and
Someone rolls her eyes 11 times
That is about the range of emotions in this book: not deep nor subtle. "Shallow" is probably the operative word to describe the dialogue.
The story is told from the points of view of two girls who are high school swimming rivals who then fall in love and attend the same college so they can be roommates (wink wink). One of the girls' mothers is a bitch with handles that sniffs just about every quote she is credited with. The two girls' personalities are virtually indistinguishable from the text. One girl gets leukemia and her horrible mother kicks her girlfriend out of her hospital room. Then the sick girl realizes that her girlfriend is more important to her than her mother, and she tells her mother off. The book ends happily.
I didn't realize this was perhaps a YA book or that it was part of a series. It was poorly written, poorly edited, and the author does not know how to use a comma correctly.
Unless you're smitten with romantic books like this, I would avoid it entirely.
July 16, 2016
This is a bit of a departure from the tone of most of Archer's other novels. It has a more serious tone due to the type of illness that's included and also delves into the serious problem of having a parent who doesn't support their child yet still has a lot of contact and tries to influence, or flat out make decisions for a young adult. Alyssa has dealt with that overbearing parent her whole life, but it takes Sarah being in her life for Alyssa to realize that it really is too much. The problem is that Alyssa gets sick while things aren't settled and her mom uses that as an opportunity to once again step in and take over, with disastrous results for Sarah and the relationship the two girls have. This exposes a situation that many same-sex couples have had to deal with, the fact that unless they have some kind of legal standing, it's easy for disapproving family members to deny access to their loved one in a hospital setting. It's a heavy topic for a romance, but it works to show how adversity can also bring two people together. I like the relationship between Alyssa and Sarah, and enjoyed watching them find each other. I also enjoyed the details of their swimming competition. It makes me remember the dedication and competitive spirit that high school sports can engender in students, and the bonding that can take place between players. All in all, another good read, although not as light-hearted as some of her others.
I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.
June 12, 2021
Rivals two lovers
Alyssa and Sarah where rivals and swimming competition. The characters in this book were very emotional and great. The plot of the story was very good and really kept my attention. Cm I would recommend this book for all of story readers who would enjoy a good romance.
Alyssa and Sarah where rivals and swimming competition. The characters in this book were very emotional and great. The plot of the story was very good and really kept my attention. Cm I would recommend this book for all of story readers who would enjoy a good romance.
July 16, 2016
You can't choose the family you're born into
This book is a bit of a departure from the books Mia has written to date. This book has more depth to it.
The main characters, Sarah and Alyssa have competed against each other on their school swim teams and were evenly matched. They find themselves going to the same college, each having a spot on the swim team.
During this time period they discover they have feelings for each other. The only problem is Alyssa's mother. She wants to control every aspect of Alyssa's life. She is especially not happy when she learns Alyssa and Sarah have feelings for each other. Without giving any more of the plot away it's safe to say Mom pulls some underhanded tricks to break them up.
This book was an enjoyable read.
This book is a bit of a departure from the books Mia has written to date. This book has more depth to it.
The main characters, Sarah and Alyssa have competed against each other on their school swim teams and were evenly matched. They find themselves going to the same college, each having a spot on the swim team.
During this time period they discover they have feelings for each other. The only problem is Alyssa's mother. She wants to control every aspect of Alyssa's life. She is especially not happy when she learns Alyssa and Sarah have feelings for each other. Without giving any more of the plot away it's safe to say Mom pulls some underhanded tricks to break them up.
This book was an enjoyable read.
December 14, 2021
Stay really is a sweet romance. Two competitors who don’t act as if there is a nasty rivalry between them. Mia Archer creates warm characters who promote each other versus tearing each other down. I love it.
Sarah and Alyssa are so cute together. I love their first meeting and everything that happens after. Archer gives us a quick feel good romance. This is not to say that there are not some real-life issues in their story, but it balances the sweetness. Archer showcases some of the realities of competitive sports and the difficulties involved.
There are some minor spelling issues in this story, but it doesn’t detract from the story.
Stay is exactly what Archer says it is: a sweet lesbian romance. I love a guaranteed happily-ever-after and you will too.
Thank you to the Author for putting this book in #KindleUnlimited otherwise I could not have afford to read it. Thanks again!
Sarah and Alyssa are so cute together. I love their first meeting and everything that happens after. Archer gives us a quick feel good romance. This is not to say that there are not some real-life issues in their story, but it balances the sweetness. Archer showcases some of the realities of competitive sports and the difficulties involved.
There are some minor spelling issues in this story, but it doesn’t detract from the story.
Stay is exactly what Archer says it is: a sweet lesbian romance. I love a guaranteed happily-ever-after and you will too.
Thank you to the Author for putting this book in #KindleUnlimited otherwise I could not have afford to read it. Thanks again!
March 29, 2020
Basic YA romance with likeable main characters. The meet-cute is at a swim competition. The attraction is almost instantaneous. A serious health scare and a dragon mother add some melodramatic angst. Secondary characters are few and lightly sketched leaving the plot flatter than it might have been. Of course the couple have their expected HEA.
May 8, 2022
One of Mia Archer's best books to date. The Storyline is great and the pacing is perfect. Loved the characters especially the main protagonists- their relationship was perfect.
Really loved this book and highly recommend it.
Really loved this book and highly recommend it.
October 14, 2016
Who says swimming is about winning the race?
Winning your opponent is much more important!
Winning your opponent is much more important!
September 2, 2016
Whatever might happen in the future was going to happen, but it was important to live in the now.
Really cute and sweet compared to my first Archer read which was Love Games. There's more substance in this one too. I really like both of the characters though one tricky part of having two voices would be to make each one unique than the other. They both sounded the same to me and it confused me a few times other than that this was a just a cute story. Certainly could be improved more but still an enjoyable read to past the time.
Really cute and sweet compared to my first Archer read which was Love Games. There's more substance in this one too. I really like both of the characters though one tricky part of having two voices would be to make each one unique than the other. They both sounded the same to me and it confused me a few times other than that this was a just a cute story. Certainly could be improved more but still an enjoyable read to past the time.
September 10, 2018
Splashing!
This is a well written story about two teenagers who form a tentative friendship despite competing against each other. When health issues strike one of the young women, her mother tries to keep them apart. The strong characters make the story come alive and pull the reader in. This is one for your must read list.
This is a well written story about two teenagers who form a tentative friendship despite competing against each other. When health issues strike one of the young women, her mother tries to keep them apart. The strong characters make the story come alive and pull the reader in. This is one for your must read list.
June 25, 2024
probably my favorite mia archer book
so hear warming
so hear warming
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews