#31 [2024/CBR16] Check and Mate by Ali Hazelwood

I've read a number of women-in-science, love stories by Ali Hazelwood, but this is the first young adult, romance I've read by her. This one is about chess. Mallory Greenleaf loved chess; in fact, she was obsessed with it. And she was very good at it. Trained by her father, she was working her way up the ranks even as a young teenager. But then she saw her dad kiss another woman. It tore their family apart. Mallory blamed herself and quit playing chess.

Mallory's mother is sick, and Mallory spends a lot of her time trying to keep her family, including her two younger sisters, afloat. One day her best friend is short a chess player for a local tournament, and she talks Mallory into joining her team. A surprise celebrity, Nolan Sawyer, and the current World Champion shows up. And Mallory beats him. Panicking, Mallory runs off, but people don't just ignore a performance like that. Mallory is invited to join a chess team, and get paid to practice the game of chess for one year. She resists, but eventually the financial troubles at home force her hand. 

Nolan is intrigued by her and would love to play her again, but Mallory resists. However, the two keep running into each other at subsequent tournaments. Eventually Mallory agrees to help Nolan train for the next World Championships, and the two become even closer. At the same time, Mallory is keeping all of this a secret from her family.

When a player is caught cheating, suddenly Mallory has to decide if she wants to play against Nolan in the World Championships. Even worse, she discovers that it was Nolan who set up the "job" where she was paid to play chess for a year, and she feels betrayed. But romance novels have a way of working themselves out, and everything ends pretty happily in this one once again.

I definitely liked parts of this book, and I was happy to see Mallory and Nolan together. However, it wasn't my favorite. I kind of understood where Mallory's angst and guilt were coming from, but she kept making horrible choices that were really frustrating to read. I also found her sisters to be really annoying. Yet it kept my attention, and it was interesting to get a glimpse into the world of competitive chess.