Kiss to Defy by Anna B. Doe is a college sports romance between a figure skater and a hockey player. Rei has been a competitive figure skater her entire life and it’s finally her year to work towards the Olympic trials and Olympic Games. But she’s also dying to have a “normal” experience and convinces her dad to let her enroll in college. She’s taking a lighter class load than normal so she still has plenty of time to train each day.

Rei and Zane have a meet-disaster when she almost hits him with her car. And then she has the rink booked in the early morning which is when Zane likes to go skate by himself before official practice starts. Both of these instances make Zane even grumpier than the grump that he is. He grew up with a challenging family life in the wrong neighborhood and was thankfully taken in by his friend’s grandmother when he was 16 so he could start to turn his life around.

Rei and Zane obviously got off on the wrong foot, but they slowly develop a friendship, which then turns into more. But Zane’s past is coming back to haunt him and he’s determined to keep all of that away from Rei and her ambitions, which means pushing her away. Zane also has to grapple with how much he feels like he doesn’t belong in Rei’s world. Her dad is extremely wealthy and he and his friends don’t treat Zane very kindly upon first meeting him. Which only reinforces Zane’s feelings that he doesn’t belong with Rei. But all Rei cares about is that Zane is the only person in her life who sees her as more than just a figure skater - he sees all parts of her.

I loved how much time we spent with the characters on the ice. If you love figure skating, I think you’ll enjoy this book because you get to not only see each of the characters practice and perform on page but you also get to see Zane use his knowledge, schooling and natural abilities to help Rei get passed a hurdle when no one else could help. I would say the parts of the story that took this down from a 5-star read for me is that Zane’s mom, Rei’s dad and Rei’s coach seemed almost like exaggerated caricatures in their moments of villiany to the point where it pulled me out of the story a bit.

I listened to this on audio but it is also available in Kindle Unlimited! This was dual POV and both narrators did a great job. Kiss to Defy is party of an interconnected series (which I’ll now have to check out the rest!) but I was totally fine reading it as a standalone.

Thank you to Forever and Always PRdalwayspr.com/ for a review copy of the audiobook.

CW: alcohol use, drugs, parental neglect/emotional abuse, racism