Their only path to victory is each other . . .

George and Lucas can’t stand each other – which makes it awkward being on the same Cambridge University rowing team. The uber-charming, womanising George got parachuted into Cambridge from America for his sporting prowess, despite his subpar grades, whereas Lucas worked for everything he’s got – which sadly doesn’t include a boyfriend. When George is told that this year he’ll have to sit his exams fair and square, Lucas agrees to help him study – in exchange for help in wooing his crush, Amir.

Together, they embark on a journey to seduce, cheat, and beat their way to the top. They face rivals within their own squad, cutthroat competitors at Oxford, and their own annoyance with each other. But as they get closer, they find that they actually make a great duo. Will Lucas and George help their rowing team beat their arch rivals in a centuries-old feud? Will George manage to pass his fiendishly hard exams? Will Lucas finally work up the courage to ask Amir out? And what will Lucas and George do when they realise that what they really want is each other – even if that means changing their lives forever.

For fans of Red, White and Royal Blue, See You at the Finish Line is a brand-new LGBTQ+ enemies to lovers romance with a love story that will warm your heart.

This was totally my kind of romance, and I gotta admit, I was a little surprised by that because the enemies-to-lovers trope is usually a hard pass for me. Nine times out of ten it ends up being two people screaming at each other for three hundred pages until they miraculously fall in love after they’re forced to share a bed. That is not what happens here.

George and Lucas row together at Cambridge, and they can’t stand each other. Honestly, it’s more Lucas who can’t stand George. George is kind of a clueless puppy. He’s also the charming American who got handed a spot at Cambridge because of his athletic ability, even though his academics don’t justify being there. Lucas, on the other hand, got there by grinding for it. He’s smart, focused, and very pointedly does not have a boyfriend, which becomes relevant later. This year, George has been told he actually has to pass his exams on his own merit. So he makes Lucas an offer. Lucas will tutor him, and in exchange George will help Lucas land the guy he’s been quietly interested in for a while. From there, the two of them work together to make George smart and get Lucas a boyfriend all while the rowing season heats up around them. There are rivals on their own squad, the eternal grudge match with Oxford, and the constant frustration of having to spend so much time around each other. And then, slowly, they start to figure out that they actually work pretty well as a team. And then they start to figure out they might actually care for one another.

The reason the trope worked for me here is that Hammet doesn’t write Lucas’s attitude as petty, and George is kind of clueless. It wasn’t just two, angry people going at one another for no reason. Also, Lucas has reasons to be wary of George. The chip on his shoulder isn’t manufactured and George represents a kind of casual privilege that Lucas had to grind to even get close to, and watching Lucas slowly let his guard down felt natural rather than forced. By the time he starts seeing George as a real person, you understand why he wouldn’t have before.

The slow burn is the other thing this book really nails. I loved how gradual it is. There’s no manufactured pining where they realize they’re in love a hundred pages in and then invent reasons to stay apart for another two hundred. The book actually takes its time and the attraction develops in moments. The way these two end up where they end up made complete sense to me.

The dual perspective also really works. We get inside both Lucas and George, and the access to George in particular is what makes this book sing. He’s the kind of guy who would be easy to write off as pretty and privileged if we only saw him through Lucas’s eyes. Inside his head, he’s so much more than the charm act. He’s working through things, and desperate for people to see him as a person rather than just an object, and watching him put words to those things gives some lovely insight into who he is.

What I appreciated most is how authentically gay this book is from the author to the subject matter and how it all plays out. It isn’t a romance with two interchangeable men who could be any gender. It’s a story about two specific gay men figuring themselves out, and the specifics matter. The way they navigate attraction, the way they talk to each other, the way their feelings sit, all of it is rooted in something real. That’s not a small thing, and it’s exactly what I want when I read in this genre.

If you’re a romance reader who’s been burned by lazy enemies-to-lovers takes, or a queer reader looking for something that actually feels written for you, this is the one to grab. I had a great time with it, and that’s not a sentence I get to say about romance very often.