THE GOAL (Off Campus Book #4) by ELLE KENNEDY

”You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sabrina James.”
“No.” She smiles. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” 

Yet another winner in what has become one of our favourite sports romance series. Once again, everything we love about these books was there: the friendships, the love, the witty banter, hot hockey players and a hero to completely lose our hearts to, plus some very, very sexy times.

Sabrina James has always been a bit of enigma throughout the books. She’s been mentioned in previous books and through glimpses, we know she’s been the nemesis of Dean who seems to dislike her immensely. She was painted as an entitled cold hearted bitch, so when THAT bombshell was dropped at the end of The Score…you bet we were desperate for Tucker and Sabrina’s story and how THAT bombshell came to fruition.

Now, we were all set to dislike Sabrina and it would’ve been so easy to do so because in John Tucker, Elle Kennedy created such a beautifully sweet, extremely sexy and all round nice guy. He was luscious to say the least so Sabrina had a LOT of work to do to become worthy of his affections. So did our preconceived opinions of Sabrina change in The Goal?

Everything we presumed to know about Sabrina was flipped on its head. We really understood this girl. Sure, she was driven and closed off, but her drive was born out of a desire to better her life and to escape her dire home surroundings. Sabrina was prepared to work bloody hard to get there and she didn’t want any distractions. Sex is fine, just no attachments or anything that might derail her dream of being accepted into Harvard Law. Working two jobs and studying like crazy, she barely has time for sleeping, let alone time for matters of the heart. So yeah, she could be construed as closed off and cold, but we did warm to her and admired her commitment, though she was bloody lucky John Tucker had the patience of a saint because she did test our patience towards the end. We wanted to shake her and show her what she had in a man like Tucker and felt she robbed Tucker of a ‘special‘ moment due to her stubbornness.

‘Sabrina James isn’t used to people loving her. Sometimes I wonder if she even knows how to love someone back.’

John Tucker…where do we start with this guy? Once again Elle Kennedy gave us a hero to die for! Seriously…this guy is kind, charming, swoon worthy, sweet, and hot and a bit of a dirty talker with a heart the size of Texas and a sexy Southern drawl to match. When he drawled…darlin’…. our hearts melted!!!

‘She’s got this hard exterior, but inside she’s as soft as butter. I see flashes of vulnerability in her bottomless brown eyes and I just want to…take care of her.’

We don’t want to expand on anything in the story outside of the synopsis because the beauty of Tucker and Sabrina’s love story lies in experiencing the unfolding events for yourselves and we would hate to ruin that experience for other readers. We’ll just say- to see Tucker in this light….OMG! Swoon on steroids!

Picking up each book in this series really is like coming home and catching up with old friends. We feel so invested in their lives, their loves, their futures and each book giving us a further perspective on previous events. Again we welled up over events that occurred in The Score.

“You’re the only one for me. My sun rises and sets on your smile. My heart beats because yours does.”

The Goal had a different ‘feel’ to the other instalments and whilst it wasn’t our favourite, we really did enjoy it and wouldn’t have missed it for the world. We’re not ready to say goodbye to these guys yet, and on that note….can we have Fitzy’s book next…pretty pweease!