First Love, Second Draft
First Love, Second Draft
By: Becca Kinzer
[Fulfilled ‘Book that includes baseball’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
“There were only two ways this forced reunion of theirs could end— a passionate reconciliation that led to the renewal of their vows… or a double homicide.”
This is a rom-com about second-chance love. I don’t know how often second-chance love stories involve previously married people, but I love that about this book.
First Love, Second Draft has humor, redemption, and subtle Chicago Cubs references— what more could you ask for?
Other than a couple characters and a shotgun wedding, this book is a solid double, possibly a triple depending how accurate of a throw it is.
Gracie Parker, a rom-com writer, has been divorced from Noah Parker, a professional baseball player, for five years when their paths cross again.
Noah has been removed from the post-season roster of the Seattle Mariners, basically ending his career (cuz he’s old) and he realizes he wants to win back his ex-wife who he never should have let go of in the first place.
Gracie— recently just injured in the most ridiculous way— will NOT be accepting help from Noah during her recovery. Except that’s her only option if she doesn’t want to check herself into a rehab facility.
Gracie tries to play the ‘Ice Queen’, unmoved by Noah’s attempts to rekindle their love, focused on finishing her book that’s under a tight deadline. But Noah is not giving up and even finagles a way for them to work together on a book project forcing them to have a conversation about what led to their split.
I liked the premise of the novel. I liked the Casey’s pizza reference. I liked that a rom-com tried to incorporate sports into the story. I really like the title and the ‘rewriting’ of their love story.
The redemption in this book is the best part. [This may be a little bit of a spoiler, but it’s a rom-com so suspense isn’t the driving force of this book and I think it’s okay] At the root of their divorce was infertility and the strain that puts on a marriage. Added to that were the demands of a professional baseball career and a wife feeling like she’s grieving alone.
I had my own journey of infertility and trying to get pregnant and miscarrying. I understand how she felt alone in her grief and I understand how Noah didn’t know how to grieve with her, how he defaulted to his job because that’s all he knew how to do, the only way to not feel like a failure. A miscarriage is a special kind of loss and grief that men can’t fully identify with and that can definitely create disconnect and distance.
They didn’t know how to love each other when things got hard and fighting for their marriage when they’re both grieving in different ways became too difficult. Books about divorced people working through their problems, recognizing they should have fought harder for their marriage, confessing their mistakes are not common. I love that Kinzer showed that divorce doesn’t have to be the answer.
Kinzer shares in her author’s note that she’s a big Cubs fan (woot woot!) and that not only were Gracie and Dusty’s names inspired by the Cubs, but the rain delay at the end as well. She recounts her feelings from Game 7 of the Cubs/Indians World Series during the rain delay. It was this idea that a rain delay doesn’t mean you give up— you keep fighting. So in this baseball themed rom-com, the divorce was the rain delay that they needed to fight through. The rain delay does not mean the end.
Now there were two characters I did not care for.
Gracie’s sister Mona. She was so unreliable. And it turns out she advised her sister many times in unwise and selfish ways. Family is family, but I can see a really frustrating relationship between these two. Mona seemed to be in her own little world with little regard for her sister or her son.
Rachel. I am pretty much never a fan of a scatterbrained, flighty, clumsy character. They are stressful and annoying and exaggerated. But to add to that trope, Rachel’s occupation was a nurse. It made it so much worse! There’s no way a person like Rachel could function like a nurse who has to keep track of multiple patient’s strict medicine schedules or handle high-stress situations. Not to mention when Matt got into a car accident she freaks out at the hospital and acts like he’s literally dying and how can the nurse say he can go home?! and where is their supervisor?! She was hysterical. I don’t believe scatterbrained characters, but I REALLY don’t believe this type of character as a nurse.
This then leads my other problem with the book: Matt and Rachel’s relationship. With Kinzer’s attention to marriage in regards to Noah and Gracie, I would have thought she wouldn’t have been so careless with Matt and Rachel. Yes, they’ve been friends for a long time, but they’ve never actually dated each other. All of a sudden they realize they’re in love with each other and they get married after one week?!
And Gracie supports this? It doesn’t make sense. Marriage is a good thing, but it’s also a big thing. Long engagements aren’t always best, but I think there is a lot of wisdom in actually being in a relationship with someone for a little while before jumping into a lifelong commitment. Call me crazy.
Matt and Rachel were like the microcosm of Noah and Gracie and then overnight they became Noah and Gracie on steroids. I would have rather them just be the ripple to Noah and Gracie’s wave in terms of story prominence and plot moving. I would give you another analogy to explain my feelings but I just ran out.
My last little critique of the book feels weird to say, but I’m going to anyway. Gracie’s mention of God at the end seemed rather abrupt. I guess her dad kinda led her down the path of spiritual reasoning, but with no real mention of faith up until that point it seems out of left field for Gracie to decide she needs to depend on God more or for her dad to bring it up.
I mean I’m all for depending on God, but in terms of this book, I think it either needed to be a longer thread that showed up at least a little bit more often or taken out completely.
When she mentions it to Noah I was like- wait, is that an important thing to him? We never really got any sort of measure on where either of their faith was at. I don’t know if Kinzer was required to have that in there in order to be labeled a Christian Fiction book, but it seemed like a last minute- Oh yeah, we need God in there- type of thing instead of something intentional.
I’m okay with just having a clean, redemptive story without an overt Christian message— I don’t have any problem with that. I also don’t have a problem if an author wants to make faith a prominent part of a character’s journey. What bothered me was the way it was just randomly slid in like it was supposed to mean something when it didn’t.
Recommendation
Romance is a dicey genre these days. I try to just stick to rom-coms, but even then the spicy factor can still be ratcheted up. I think there is a big market for clean rom-coms and can appreciate a book like this that can do it!
While there were a few characters that annoyed me, overall it was an enjoyable read and a good second-chance love story with some decent humor.
If you are looking for a romance or rom-com book, I would definitely give this one a try!
Oh, one last warning for Cubs fans— she sent the Cardinals to the World Series in her own book!! Not even her husband could convince her to change it, so just prepare yourself for the trajesty.
[Content Advisory: no swearing; there is a bathtub scene that I suppose could count towards sexual content but it was a mostly clothed comical scene between two previously married people so it doesn’t feel sexual]
**Received a copy via Tyndale Publishing in exchange for an honest review**
This book just released in April, 2025. You can order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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