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Pairing: M/F
Heat Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Scorching
Series: Blackwood Ravens Book 1
Tropes: Fake Dating, Tutor Romance, Grumpy/Sunshine, Dyslexia Rep, Coach’s Niece
He needs a fake girlfriend to save his career. She needs data to prove she earned her place. Neither of them planned on catching feelings.
Jax Donovan has one job: stay eligible and stay out of trouble until draft day. Too bad he’s failing Econ… and accidentally punched a rival player in front of the media.
Enter Sadie Sinclair—analytics genius, coach’s niece, and the only person who can save his season. Her proposal is simple: She tutors him. They fake-date in public to repair his image. No feelings. No complications. No lines crossed.
Easy… until she discovers he’s been fighting undiagnosed dyslexia his entire life. And he discovers he’d burn the world down for her.
Suddenly the rules blur—tutoring sessions turn into late-night confessions, staged photos turn into real jealousy, and the fake relationship starts to feel dangerously real. But when pressure from scouts and family explodes, Jax pushes her away in the cruelest way possible.
He needs redemption. She needs proof she wasn’t just a project. Somewhere between strategy and heart—they stop faking.
You’ll Love This Book If You Enjoy…
- ✅ Fake dating that becomes devastatingly real
- ✅ Hockey players with hearts of gold beneath grumpy exteriors
- ✅ Neurodivergent representation with authentic dyslexia portrayal
- ✅ Brainy heroines who see past the athlete to the man
- ✅ Elle Kennedy and Hannah Grace vibes
Chapter One: Shattered
The thing about dive bars is that they all smell the same—stale beer soaked into floorboards, fryer grease, and that particular brand of desperation that clung to places where college kids and townies mixed badly.
Jax Donovan hunched in a corner booth, his 6’3″ frame folded into a space designed for smaller, happier people. A half-empty beer sat in front of him, warming and forgotten. He’d pulled a baseball cap low over his dark hair and kept his eyes down. The goal was invisibility, which was nearly impossible when you carried the weight of a legendary last name.
Donovan. Even thinking it made his shoulders tense.
His phone sat face-down on the scarred wood table. Three missed calls from his father. Two texts from Coach Sinclair about his Econ midterm grade.
Forty-two percent.
The number sat in his stomach like a stone. The exam had been a nightmare of supply curves and demand schedules that swam on the page like they were actively trying to escape. If he failed Econ, he was academically ineligible. No playing. Not in his draft year.
Then he saw Mark Kessel—Corning’s center, dirty player, media darling—cornering a freshman girl near the bathrooms. She was shaking her head, clearly uncomfortable.
Jax’s jaw tightened. Ignore him. You can’t afford trouble.
Then Kessel, frustrated by her rejection, loud enough for half the bar: “What are you, retarded?”
The world went very quiet.
Emma. His little sister. Fifteen years old. A learning disability that made school a battlefield. That exact slur had followed her since childhood.
Jax was moving before conscious thought kicked in.
He punched him. A good punch—all his weight behind it, knuckles connecting with Kessel’s perfect nose with a deeply satisfying crack.
Kessel went down hard. The bar erupted into chaos. And standing in the doorway, phone out and recording, was a student journalist from the campus sports blog.
Kessel, blood streaming from his face, smiled with red teeth. “You’re done, Donovan. You’re fucking done.”
He was right.
The next morning brought Coach Sinclair’s office, a two-game suspension, and the worst news of all: a tutor. Someone who would sit across from him and watch him struggle with words that wouldn’t stay still.
And in five hours, his father would land, ready to dissect every failure, every weakness, every way Jax had fallen short of the impossible Donovan standard.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is this book spicy?
Yes! The Blurred Playbook features explicit intimate scenes between consenting adults. Heat level is scorching (🌶️🌶️🌶️).
Is this a standalone?
Yes and no! The Blurred Playbook is Book 1 in the Blackwood Ravens series and tells Jax and Sadie’s complete love story with a guaranteed HEA. You can read it standalone, but future books feature side characters from Blackwood.
What tropes are in this book?
Fake dating, tutor romance, grumpy hockey player/sunshine heroine, coach’s niece, neurodivergent representation (dyslexia), and “she sees the real me.”
Does this book have a happy ending?
Absolutely! All Fractal Enigma books guarantee a satisfying happily ever after.
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