The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn | Free Audiobook
10 April 2026
The Mistake (Off-Campus, Book 2), by Elle Kennedy | Free Audiobook
12 April 2026
Audiobook details
They negotiated terms. The heart didn't sign.
Hannah Wells is a music major at Briar University with a clear and limited objective: get close enough to Justin Kohl, the football team's new wide receiver, to find out if the attraction is worth acting on. She keeps most people at a careful distance, for reasons she does not explain to anyone, and she is not looking for the unexpected. She is looking for something on her own terms, at her own pace.
Garrett Graham is the captain of Briar's hockey team and he intends to go professional after graduation. That plan depends on his grades, and his grades depend on passing a philosophical ethics class he is currently failing at a pace that makes his future look unlikely. When he discovers that Hannah, the one person on campus who appears entirely unmoved by his reputation, is the person best positioned to keep him eligible, he proposes an arrangement. She tutors him through his exam; he uses his position on campus to engineer the situation Hannah wants with Justin. No complications. Nothing outside the terms they agreed on.
The tutoring sessions at the hockey house dismantle both of their defenses in ways neither anticipated. Garrett's father, Phil Graham, a former NHL star whose behavior in private bears no resemblance to his public standing, eventually notices that his son has become attached to someone. The ultimatum he brings to Hannah is not abstract. It targets the thing she cares about most, and it gives her a choice with no clean answer.
I came to The Deal late, years after it had already become the reference point that every sports romance felt obligated to either follow or react against. I had avoided it partly because of the hype and partly because fake dating as a premise has been done so many times that the execution would have to be exceptional to justify it. It is.
The book's smartest move is that Hannah and Garrett are already interesting people before they are interesting to each other. Hannah is a music major preparing for a winter showcase that could help her family's finances, carrying a history she does not broadcast and a wariness that reads as self-possession rather than damage. Garrett is the campus hockey captain who turns out to have a genuine interior life, which he has kept hidden because the version of him that works socially does not require one. Their first few tutoring sessions work because Elle Kennedy lets them be good at things independently before she puts them in the same room and waits.
The fake relationship mechanics are minimal. Kennedy does not stretch the premise past the point where it would strain credibility. The arrangement shifts within a few chapters, and the book then becomes something else: two people who grew up around difficult versions of love trying to identify what a functional version of it would actually look like. That second half is where the book earns the ending it gives you.
Garrett's father is the antagonist, and the specificity of that choice matters. Phil Graham is a former NHL player whose treatment of the people around him has been hidden by his public status. The threat he delivers to Hannah is not melodramatic. It is the kind of quiet, calculated harm that is harder to name and harder to argue against, and the way Hannah processes it without asking for help is one of the most honest sequences in the book.
Christian Fox handles Garrett's chapters with a cadence that sits somewhere between confident and self-deprecating, which is exactly what the character requires. Lorelei Avalon reads Hannah with a dry precision that keeps the emotional beats landing without telegraphing them in advance. At 12 hours and 26 minutes, the pacing across the two voices stays balanced, and the dual narration makes the shift in each character's perspective audible chapter by chapter.
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The Deal by Elle Kennedy is the first book in the Off-Campus series and one of the books most credited with shaping the college romance genre over the past decade. It follows music major Hannah Wells and hockey captain Garrett Graham as they strike a tutoring arrangement with benefits neither of them planned for. The fake relationship trope is the vehicle. The actual subject is two people learning to trust someone after spending years not doing so.
Take advantage of the free trial, cancellable at any time, and hear Christian Fox and Lorelei Avalon narrate all 12 hours and 26 minutes. The dual cast keeps Garrett's easy confidence and Hannah's careful restraint acoustically distinct, which makes the shift in each character's feelings easier to track as it happens.
The audiobook remains yours forever, even after the trial ends. The free trial also gives you access to thousands of other titles at no ongoing cost. Start listening now.
More Audiobooks by Elle Kennedy
US-based editor & staff writer focused on audiobooks. Honest reviews, curated “best of” lists, and practical guides with an accessibility lens.
