Never Mine

A Lesbian Romance

By: Bryce Oakley

Narrated by: AJ Ferraro

What if their fake relationship wasn’t ever just pretend?

Sage Carson has a messy reputation. Sure, she’s a soccer star with World Cup trophies and Olympic medals, but she’s almost as well known for her rebellious behavior off the pitch. She’s left enough gorgeous women with broken hearts in her dust to fill a roster. That was, until she got injured. Now, her frustratingly slow recovery means she’d better secure this new squeaky-clean endorsement deal in order to get back on top.

Sweet, sunshiny Willa Bellamy has a crisis on her hands. She’s used to it - as an events coordinator for the Denver Zoo, it’s her job to handle crises. But when she receives an invite to her ex’s wedding, she’s not so sure it’ll be as easy to handle as an escaped emu during a Girl Scout sleepover. Even worse, when the bachelorette party invite mentions that couples are welcome, she realizes she’s the sole single person invited.

Fifteen years ago, Willa and Sage roamed the same halls of Edgelake High School. When their paths cross again, they decide to team up to solve both their problems - a stable, albeit fake, relationship to snag the endorsement deal and a hot soccer star to make the couples getaway sting a little less.... But when the lines between real and fake start to blur, will they be able to keep the growing heat between them just a game, or will they start playing to win?

Narrated by AJ Ferraro

©2021 Bryce Oakley (P)2021 Bryce Oakley

The best version of a romcom🥰

So fun and heartwarming (and sexy!) This book is begging to be made into romcom.

Amazing

I loved this book! It’s very cute. I would highly recommend this book to everyone

Sweet Love Story

Ms. Oakley has a knack for creating likeable, believable characters, and story arcs most of us would likely relate to. I throughly enjoyed this book. Narration by A.J. Ferarro was excelent, as well.

Very good book!

I would love to have a sequel to this story. Both Willa and Sage were adorable, funny, and characters full of chemistry. Well done!

Believable story and interesting characters.

Can’t say enough great things about the storyline and characters. All was enjoyable and believable. This narrator is the most fascinating and makes it all real for my imagination.

Fantastic!

This was a super cute sapphic fauxmance. Sage is a famous soccer player who reconnects with girl next door type Willa at their 15 year high school reunion. Sage is in desperate need of an image makeover and Willa is in need of a date to her ex-girlfriend’s bachelorette party so they decide on a mutually beneficially arrangement where they pretend to be dating.
Bryce Oakley is great at writing witty banter and I always find myself smiling a lot when I read her work.
I’m personally shying away from angsty books right now. I’ll say this was maybe the lower end of mid-angst but it wasn’t too bad for me thanks to the author’s talent for injecting fun in her writing. I’d definitely recommend this one to anyone.

Never Mine

This was really cute... I love sports romances! (With a little fake dating as well)

Sage and Willa each have their hangups, but they have steamy chemistry. Their banter is so adorable as well - they bring out the playful side in each other. Chance meeting at their high school reunion, and then it takes off from there!

A lot can happen on the way to finding your heart.

A wonderful story about a fake romance for two women who went to high school together. Will a was the nice girl who brilliantly cared for everyone bit herself. Sage was the star Soccer player whose injury and attitude threatened to sideline her.
They both needed a "favor" to get through some tough moments.
Neither expected the fake relationship would give them the strength to be authenticly themselves. I loved the banter they had and the awkward way their relationship grew. Finding friends in the most unlikely places when they least expected it.
An inspiration of true human. living, doing what you enjoy and giving back with passion. A great love story to listen too, thanks to AJ Ferraro and the brilliant Bryce Oakley.

Good story / bad narrator!

I did like the story, but this narrator has an odd voice & cannot say BREATH! She says BREFF! It drives me crazy. She took her BREFF away, she held her BREFF. Ugh. She did this on another book too by Georgia Beers, Shaken or Stirred & I forgot until I started listening to this book. I will check before purchasing from now on!

Pretend Romance... Fauxmance?

I can't remember if this is the first "fake girlfriend" type book I've read but when looking it up and accidentally reading another review for it (I usually try not to do that) - I saw it categorized as something I'd never heard of before: "sapphic fauxmance." Sapphic refers to the lesbian relationship. And fauxmance -- faux romance, okay that makes sense. So, it's just something I'd never heard of before and I wanted to call it out. The review that mentioned it is by Melissa on Audible, so a shout out to her for calling that to my attention.

Now, onto the actual book review. Never Mine was one of those books that had me smiling throughout. I love a good sports romance, even when only one of the characters is sporty. It's made even better by the introduction of Willa, who is basically the least sporty person. She's into organizing the sugar packets at dinner and making sure she has a backup to her backup. Sage, the sporty one, basically has a team of people who help her get from event to event and day-to-day.

It starts as a contracted quid pro quo arrangement. Sage needs to start looking like she's settling down and Willa wants to not be the seventh wheel to her friends. It's a contracted match made in heaven. Of course, feelings start to get involved and so do the feeling of not being good enough (on both sides). I found Never Mine to be so insanely heartwarming and real that it just kept making me smile again and again.

The way that it keeps getting close then veering off and getting close again - I thought would drive me nuts, but it ended up just making me want them to get together more and more. Now, I won't ruin the ending (even if I gave it away it's WAY cuter than you're expecting) but I was very pleased with how the entire book turned out. The character growth of both Sage and Willa made me extremely happy. Sage's "coming into her own skin outside of soccer" and Willa's "realizing she's worth more than she's giving herself credit for" are both realistic and honest. I love that Oakley was able to weave these very honest feelings of self-doubt into Sage and Willa. It just makes the story feel that much more real.

Overall, Never Mine was a blast and exactly what I needed this week. It was cute, funny, charming, and so much more. The "fake romance" or fauxmance was perfect, an easy 5 out of 5 from me.