If you are a fan of You’ve Got Mail then you will absolutely adore The Fastball by Emily C. Childs. This book is FANTASTIC!!! The You’ve Got Mail storyline has been popular since the first version released in theaters in 1940 (The Shop Around the Corner). Lately, this storyline seems to be everywhere. Some retellings have been good, some have been not so good, but The Fastball is great. In this story, the reader meets Blake and Dax, secret gamers who have been messaging and playing together for the past three years. Unbeknownst to these gamer buddies, Blake and Dax are actually coworkers. Blake works PR for the Vegas Kings, the popular Nevada MLB team, and Dax is the super swoony, shy first baseman. As online besties, Blake and Dax have a superb, but superficial, relationship. In real life, sparks (good and bad) fly on a daily basis. I found it super clever to cache the letter-writing parts of the story in the video-gaming world. So, why gaming? For Blake, she needs an outlet from her uber-controlled world. For Dax, he needs a safe-space from his overwhelming public life and all the responsibilities thrown at him from an early age when his beloved parents were killed in a car crash. What better way than to hide in his man-cave, right? Blake is my favorite character in this story. I found her to be so endearing, and her personal demons were unique. When most control freaks control, their desire is to keep chaos from their lives. But Blake is different. She is a control freak because she is trying to protect her loved ones from the evils of life. It’s really sweet of her to constantly put others first, but, man, I felt exhausted for her. I really enjoyed watching Dax grow into the man who sees Blake for whom she really is, and then fiercely desires to do everything in his power to protect her and alleviate her mountain of mostly Blake-made burdens. Blake and Dax’s road to romance is the best! It’s so sweet and swoony and endearing. I definitely left this book smiling from ear to ear. The Fastball is definitely a story I won’t soon forget.

The Fastball is a super sweet, delightfully excellent Contemporary Romance that I highly recommend. If you love the You’ve Got Mail plotline, and if you love excellently written and highly engaging romances filled with stuff, not fluff, then this is definitely a book you will want to check out ASAP!

I purchased a copy of this novel in eBook form from Amazon.com on August 14, 2023, in order to review. In no way has this influenced my review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.