{"id":172577,"date":"2023-10-19T10:01:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T00:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=172577"},"modified":"2023-10-19T10:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T00:01:12","slug":"review-check-mate-by-ali-hazelwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2023\/10\/19\/review-check-mate-by-ali-hazelwood\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Look at this cover… perfection!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ali Hazelwood may have just done it again! Known widely for her steamy STEM-inist romance novels, her latest book, Check & Mate<\/strong><\/a> is her first entry into the fun world of Young Adult Fiction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve read all of Ali Hazelwood’s books thus far, and Check & Mate didn’t disappoint. This novel features a fresh 18-year-old protagonist called Mallory Greenleaf (Legolas who?), who is shouldering a lot of pain and family burden. She was something of a chess prodigy as a child, however, some traumatic events occurred with her father that made her leave a promising chess career behind. Until, her best friend requests she join a tournament to raise money for charity, and she happens to beat the reigning #1 champion (and hot bad boy, of course) Nolan Sawyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mallory is thrust back into the world of chess when she is offered a fellowship (and also fired from her job, which she needs to keep her family’s roof over their heads) and is trying to balance her family commitments, a confusing relationship with chess, and her simmering interest in Nolan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mallory’s sisters are also quite the characters (one is definitely a bit nicer than the other!) but you come to understand and love them as the book progresses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This novel is suitable for both young adult and adult audiences, and I think fans of Ali’s other romance books will still get enjoyment out of this. I knew nothing about chess at all, however, I found the dynamics really intriguing as I went along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Expore more Young Adult Reads here<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

If this review wasn’t enough for you, please continue to hear me chatter about it on this episode of our podcast, Tell Me What To Read<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/www.omnycontent.com\/d\/playlist\/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5\/413a2746-13c6-4f80-bf5a-afbf006ca6dd\/68234428-1962-44c9-9f41-afbf006ca703\/podcast.rss<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ali Hazelwood may have just done it again! Known widely for her steamy STEM-inist romance novels, her latest book, Check & Mate is her first entry into the fun world of Young Adult Fiction. I’ve read all of Ali Hazelwood’s books thus far, and Check & Mate didn’t disappoint. This novel features a fresh 18-year-old protagonist called Mallory Greenleaf (Legolas who?), who is shouldering a lot of pain and family burden. She was something of a chess prodigy as a child, however, some traumatic events occurred with her father that made her leave a promising chess career behind. Until, her best friend requests she join a tournament to raise money for charity, and she happens to beat the reigning #1 champion (and hot bad boy, of course) Nolan Sawyer. Mallory is thrust back into the world of chess when she is offered a fellowship (and also fired from her job, which she needs to keep her family’s roof over their heads) and is trying to balance her family commitments, a confusing relationship with chess, and her simmering interest in Nolan. Mallory’s sisters are also quite the characters (one is definitely a bit nicer than the other!) but you come to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":172582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6678,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Editorial-Thumbnail-16.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172577"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172577"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173178,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172577\/revisions\/173178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}