Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Touchdown Tennessee
SERIES: Hard Spot Saloon
AUTHOR: Raleigh Ruebins
PUBLISHER: Self-published
LENGTH: 242 pages
RELEASE DATE: August 21, 2025
BLURB:
The goal? Get close to the college football star.
The assignment? Write an article for the college paper about him, just in time for homecoming.
The problem? I slept with the egotistical jock on day one… and I hate how good he was.
I’m a college senior with a darker past than most people will ever endure.
I don’t like anybody. I don’t trust them, either.
I write articles that bite, and get the best interviews out of people that the TNU college paper has ever seen.
Cocky? No. I just know what I’m good at.
Andrew Peachel is out and proud, and he knows he’s a college football god.
But there’s more behind his golden-boy, dimples-and-muscles, himbo perfect image.
I have an all-access pass to follow him anywhere.
Everywhere.
And I bring him to his knees on night one.
In public, he acts like I’m the enemy.
In bed, he demands I give him more.
He’s bossy. Cockier than me. A problem.
But when he responds by becoming obsessed with me, how can I resist?
REVIEW:
Note: This is book 4 in the series and so contains some minor spoilers for previous books. It works as a standalone.
Andrew Peachel is the start running back at TNU. He’s had a weird start to the year with a bad breakup and he’s done something that he thinks could ruin his chances at a professional career. His coach tells him and his team that the star reporter/editor of the school newspaper, Gray Gilman, is writing a story on the football team for the homecoming edition. Uh-oh. This could be bad.
Andrew is off his game when he sees Gray watching him. Articles Gray has written in the past have damaged reputations and worse. Andrew is terrified of what this could mean for him since football is his only thing. He’s not good at school. Sure he’s a good looking popular football player, but he’s under a lot of pressure. His grades aren’t good, he’s got this secret and now he’s got to watch his back too.
When Gray and Peach run into each other at the Hard Spot after the football game, well things get heated. And they keep finding ways to be in the same place at the same time. Neither is what the other has assumed. But they come from different worlds and they are trying to figure out what this is between them – besides incredibly hot chemistry.
Andrew has everything on the line with football. Gray had help him academically and he begins to understand the pressure an out football player is under and how that’s affecting him too. Gray needs to be the best to make a life for himself after his very rocky childhood. Is there a way everyone can win??
This story started a little slower than the previous book, but then Gray and Andrew got down to it pretty quickly. Both were dealing with issues. From the outside it looks like Peach has it all. But he’s dealing with a lot of insecurities around everything except football. He’s convinced that if he doesn’t make it to the pros, he’ll be a failure. He’s not good at anything else. His parents have given him anything he could want from a money perspective, but that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Gray has had to fight and claw his way for anything and everything. He’s also obsessed with making his own way and being successful. And this newspaper reporting is his ticket. But what happens when perception doesn’t match up with reality? What each of these two know about each other from the “surface” is wildly different from who they are as people. Andrew believes he has everything to lose if Gray finds out what he’s done. Gray discovers that what he has assumed was Andrew’s “charmed” life was actually a lot less charming than he thought. I liked how they were able to work their way to communicating – although there was a lot of push/pull here 😉 This more Hard Spot adjacent than the other books, but I enjoyed the MCs and liked seeing how things were resolved in the end. Recommended.
RATING: 
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