[QCrit] CHASING THE DREAM, NA Sports Romance, 80K words/Attempt 1
(Greeting),
Fox and Paige were never meant to heal each other…only survive a semester together.
Think: 10 Things I Hate About You meets Bend It Like Beckham.
Here’s my steamy sports romance, CHASING THE DREAM. It’s approximately 80,000 words, told in dual POV. It's comparable to The Write Off by Kara McDowell and Puck You by Flynn Novak.
Paige Blake is one psychology course away from landing her dream internship—if she can impress the professor who holds her future in his hands. Enter Fox: her annoyingly charming spring-break mistake, now her assigned partner, and the one person who can tank her final grade. Determined to keep things professional, Paige tries to ignore their undeniable chemistry and stay loyal to her on-again, off-again British boyfriend, Jay.
Fox Bolding, also a Brit, has ambitions of his own that don’t include distractions from the opposite sex. The Georgia U soccer team needs him to lead them to their first-ever national title. But the lines between competition and obsession blur when his need to win Paige over outweighs his need to win games. Fox witnesses his arrogant teammate and rival, Jay, cheating on Paige. Telling her could destroy their delicate friendship, but staying silent means he has to watch Jay make her and the team look like fools.
When Fox learns of his mom’s death and that his father had no plans of telling him until after he got his team to the final match. Fox makes a series of poor decisions that lead to disastrous consequences, both personally and professionally. Paige is perhaps the only person who can pull him from the depths of darkness before he takes more permanent measures, as her brother did after suffering an injury that cost him his professional soccer career. CHASING THE DREAM is a contemporary forced proximity/second-chance romance that’s about having the courage to be vulnerable no matter the cost. Think Elle Kennedy’s Off-Campus series, but with hot international soccer guys.
This is my debut standalone with series potential. (BIO/SignOff)
ANY advice would be helpful. Thank you in advance. :-) ~SB