Check & Mate

Mallory Greenleaf is a chess prodigy who walked away from competitive chess four years ago. When the world's top player dies under mysterious circumstances, she gets pulled back into the chess world to investigate what happened. The story moves between Mallory's current investigation and her past experiences in competitive chess, where she met Nolan Sawyer, now a grandmaster. Their reunion forces her to confront both the reasons she left chess and her unresolved feelings. The book combines romance and suspense within the high-stakes world of professional chess. Through tournaments, practice sessions, and strategic maneuvers, readers gain insight into both the technical and psychological elements of competitive chess play. This novel explores themes of ambition, power dynamics, and the price of genius. The chess motifs serve as a framework for examining larger questions about sacrifice, strategy, and the complex relationship between talent and trauma.

Readers note the strong chemistry between main characters and appreciate the chess themes woven throughout. Many cite the banter and humor as highlights, with specific praise for the protagonist's internal monologue and witty dialogue. Liked: - Authentic portrayal of competitive chess culture - STEM representation and academic setting - Balance of romance with chess storyline - Character development of the side characters Disliked: - Plot predictability following romance genre conventions - Some found the chess terminology overwhelming - Several readers mentioned pacing issues in the middle section - Multiple reviews criticized repetitive internal dialogue Ratings: Goodreads: 4.08/5 (89,000+ ratings) Amazon: 4.5/5 (11,000+ ratings) StoryGraph: 4.15/5 (8,000+ ratings) "The chess analogies worked perfectly with the romance," noted one top Goodreads review, while a critical Amazon review stated "the protagonist's self-doubt becomes tiresome after the first hundred pages."

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🎭 Author Ali Hazelwood has a PhD in neuroscience and worked as a professor before becoming a full-time writer ♟️ The book incorporates real chess strategies and famous matches throughout the story, including references to the iconic 1972 World Chess Championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky 💫 Check & Mate was partly inspired by the surge in chess popularity following the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" 🎯 Before writing romance novels, Hazelwood gained popularity writing fanfiction under a pseudonym on Archive of Our Own (AO3) 🌟 The book features a female grandmaster protagonist at a time when only about 39 out of 1,731 chess grandmasters worldwide are women (as of 2023)