[Review] First and Forever - Lynn Painter

Summary: Duffy Distefano loves three things: her dad, the family cat, and Minneapolis Coyote football. So after she gets booed out of a game and becomes the internet’s villain following an awful encounter with the team’s beloved mascot, she is disgruntled, to put it mildly. Eager to clear the air, Duffy agrees to an interview on a hit morning show. She doesn’t expect a co-guest to join her—especially not the Coyotes’ star tight end.

When MVP Connor Cunningham gets tasked with damage control to help his team out of a PR nightmare, he finds himself in a highly amusing verbal sparring match with a recently wronged fan on live TV. The interview instantly goes viral, and the public is obsessed with them. Despite his distaste for PR stunts, a strong push from the Coyotes’ PR team to ride the wave results in Connor asking Duffy out. But he quickly discovers being with Duffy is much easier than he anticipated, and somehow it doesn’t feel fake to him. This secret can only blow up, but all he knows is that if he messes things up with Duffy, it’ll be the greatest fumble of his life.

Oozing with chemistry that feels like fireworks and banter that makes you swoon, Lynn Painter delivers her signature blend of heart and humor in this love story that you won’t soon forget. (Pub Date: May 12 2026)

This book is cute and fun and lighthearted (despite some heavier themes, such as aging parents, but that don't progress to impact negatively the plot, they're just a part of the characters' lives). Of course there is a however coming—the only fireworks to it are the ones on the cover. And they were greatly missed.

A hard one to actually rate because it did provoke emotions in me even while knowing nothing much was really happening. So I'll say it's 3.5 rounded up to 4 because sometimes we just need that couple that will show us you can be happy together even before your happy ending.

Duffy and her entire family are big fans of Connor's football team when she gets to meet him for a PR stunt when both the team and her need to clean their image due to an incident she had with their mascot. She doesn't know it, but the stunt continues when his team convinces him to take her out thanks to the chemistry they had. Not that he needed much convincing; he is smitten. And even if she's not sure of dating him, being seen together also works for her.

Too bad the book was lukewarm because all the characters are lovely, even Duffy's useless brothers. I'm glad I got to know each of them and even wonder if there isn't a series in construction because some characters were so good they deserved more time and their own story. But yes, the story itself was very basic. They liked each other from the start and just needed a push to be together. The conflict was basically this push that brought them together, as Duffy doesn't know the idea of Connor asking her out for real came from his team. But his feelings are so real even as the reader I sometimes forgot about it. Duffy would have all the reason to be upset as it maculates their love story, but it became so small next to their story since then that it didn't even feel problematic. That unfortunately made the climax seem like forced conflict, but it was funny, there wasn't even much drama anyway. They are too good a couple for that. 

What this book made me feel was that someone decided to write a happy love story they wanted to happen to them. Each time Duffy and Connor met, it was like a fantasy come true. I feel that especially in some plot turns that could have made them more conflict, made them suffer more to get their happy ending but that was probably abandoned because they deserved happiness. This is probably what made the story less eventful than when you're a writer trying to get your characters into trouble, but at the same time, it also made it and both characters endearing. I might feel this book was below Lynn Painter, she's usually so good at getting those sparks going, but it strangely made me like her better for allowing herself to write the story she wanted—maybe it wasn't even that but that's how I felt this book was for.

If you want a lovely romance in which characters actually seem made for each other without the need for fireworks, this is it. 

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 4 out of 5.