Deep End (26 in 2026 #16)

Author: Ali Hazelwood Title: Deep End Publisher: Berkley Date Published: 02/04/2025

Read Dates: 07/19/2026- 07/20/2026
Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Deep End is a single POV college sports romance. Scarlett is a competitive diver trying to balance her pre-med course load. MCAT prep and med school applications, and recovering from a devastating injury in time to compete as an Olympic hopeful. She barely has time for friends and certainly doesn’t have time for relationships. But when a tentative friendship with her teammate Penelope reveals secrets about swim captain Lukas, Scarlett is intrigued. And when he proposes an arrangement that will give Scarlett a sense of control and quiet her mind amidst all the chaos, she can’t say no. Relationships, like the rest of life, refuse to stay near and orderly, and things heat up in ways no one expected!

I’ve read mixed reviews of this one, but I came down firmly in the “I loved it” camp. I will say that, for all the talk about how “kinky” this book is, I found the sex scenes fairly typical for an Ali Hazelwood book, just more frequent. But, seeing as it’s two people in their very early 20s exploring, that seemed right. I loved Scarlett and found her difficulty navigating relationships, particularly friendships, relatable. She wasn’t the best at expressing her wants/needs from any relationship in her life, but she does grow. I really liked Lukas;, he was a typical Hazelwood hero: big, taciturn and smitten, but I liked that for Lukas he hadn’t just been pining from afar for years; there was an added complication of a former romantic relationship/current friendship to navigate. Loved the glimpses into Adam and Olive years later too!

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...