The Grumpy Player Next Door by Pippa Grant

Tillie Jean Rock is the sister of baseball superstar (well, at least he's really well known in Copper Valley) Cooper Rock. She got involved with one of his teammates ONCE and now her brother is paranoid about her seeing anyone else. Sure, she flirts with most of them but they all know it's not serious. The only one who might reasonably hold her interest is Max Cole but he's avoiding her because Cooper is his best friend on the team and he doesn't want to screw up that relationship. Plus, he had a really complicated childhood and doesn't want to inflict his angst on to anyone else. 

But Max has moved next door to Tillie Jean in the off season and suddenly the close proximity means all bets are off...

One of my least favorite tropes is the "we can't date because you're my sibling's friend." And this book leans hard into Cooper not taking their relationship well. Grant tries to turn it around and make the prank war between Tillie Jean and her siblings amp up because of it but it didn't really click for me. Also, I never really saw that Max was trying to work through his issues with romance. In a romance novel. I wish we had seen more introspection and working toward healing from his crappy childhood but it mostly seemed magically resolved. 

Three stars

This book came out July 8th, 2021

Copper Valley Fireballs #3

Follows Real Fake Love

Followed by Irresistible Trouble

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own