Deep End by Ali Hazelwood 
Published by Berkley on February 4, 2025
Genres: Contemporary, Sports
Pages: 464
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.
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...
I had mixed feelings when I started this story but ultimately, I enjoyed it as much as all the other Ali Hazelwood stories.
Scarlett “Vandy” Vandermeer has just started her Junior year at Stanford. She has been cleared to return to platform diving after last year’s failed dive resulted in severe injuries. Scarlett has hopes for the NCAA and making the Olympic team before the Melbourne Olympics this summer.
What she didn’t anticipate is being dragged into the drama between the reigning “It” couple, her dive captain Penelope Ross and Olympic multi-gold medalist and swim team captain, Lukas Blomqvist. Pen and Lukas have been dating since they were teens and apparently Pen is suddenly unhappy in the relationship since she wants to sow some wild oats but not the type the Lukas seems to want. When Pen indicates that Lukas is into some kink that she just isn’t onboard with, Scarlett decides to help and pulls her aside with some advice since Scarlett too is into some kink but her old boyfriend was more like Pen. Scarlett hoped sharing her experiences and some compromises that her and her ex had determined worked for them both might just help Pen and Lukas save their relationship.
But sharing her own desires only seems to get Scarlett dragged further into their relationship after Pen gets drunk at a party and announces privately to Scarlett that she and Lukas have broken up and then Pen suggests to Lukas that he and Scarlett should get together since she also shares a like of kink.
What starts as a mutually beneficial exploration begins to feel more like the beginning of a relationship, especially as Lukas and Scarlett begin to open up to each other. Scarlett begins to realizes that after years of dating, Pen doesn’t seems to understand much about who Lukas really is. The problem is, while Pen and Lukas have broken up, Pen hasn’t actually told any of her friends and still calls Lukas whenever she needs a friend. This leaves their teammates questioning all the time Lukas and Scarlett are spending together.
Are Scarlett and Lukas at the beginning of a beautiful new relationship or is Scarlett just the third wheel to the golden couple of Penelope and Lukas?
THOUGHS:
I started this story with more than a little trepidation. First, I feared that once the discussions kept focusing on Lukas and Scarlett’s kinks, that this novel would simply be Ali Hazelwood’s attempt at a BDSM story, like Bride was her attempt at paranormal romance. I feared the story would take a back seat to the explorations. I will say that while there was a lot of discussion of kinks and preferences, there really wasn’t too much exploration that was over-the-top. I have read a few more hardcore stories that made me look away from the pages or outright skip some scenes.
I was also very concerned about Penelope. In her discussions with Scarlett at the beginning of the story, Pen was unhappy with the sexual part of her relationship with Lukas but was certain “they would find each other again, get married and have 2.5 kids.” Pen then started pushing Scarlett and Lukas together as the perfect solution to all her problems while she went off with one of the TA’s from her class. I stressed that Pen was using Scarlett as a placeholder/surrogate until she was ready to take Lukas back or once she realized how much better a relationship was with Lukas than most frat boys. I feared that introvert Scarlett was not going to end up heartbroken, but as an Olympic hopeful, Pen could do a lot of damage to Scarlett’s reputation/future if she started telling stories of Scarlett’s kink preferences to her teammates or worse, to the media. I don’t want to ruin too much but I think the author decided she liked Pen too much by the end of the story to make her a true villain here and pulled her punch when things eventually came to a head with this trio.
I am not a fan of heights and Ali Hazelwood’s many descriptions of Scarlett on top of the diving platform kept giving me flashbacks of being a kid and following my friends up to the high diving board at the public pool, being terrified, just closing my eyes and jumping. (And yes, I did that every year–like I suddenly wouldn’t be scared. Duh!) Talk about looking away from the page. I was getting PTSD just from her descriptions of being on that tower.
Of course, I enjoyed the guest appearances from Dr. Adam Carlsen and Dr. Olive Smith (The Love Hypothesis) who both teach at Stamford.
I think I am going to give this one a re-read now that I can kick back and enjoy it knowing it isn’t simply an excuse for a BDSM story and I won’t be dreading Pen ruining Scarlett’s chances to compete at the Olympics. Whether or not she competes in the Olympics comes down to Scarlett overcoming her fears gained after her severe injuries, not slander of her reputation or slut-shaming.
Now that you have a heads-up, go enjoy Scarlet and Lukas’s story.
Favorite Scene:
It’s preseason, which means conditioning. Skill refinement. Takeoffs, entries, body positions, rotations, corrections–hours in the gym, the diving well, the weight room, and then more hours at home, in class, in bed, the nagging worry that all this training won’t be enough poking at the back of my skull.
I’m a good athlete. I’ve TiVoed my dives enough times to know that. My body is strong and healthy at last. My mind…
My mind hates me, sometimes. Especially when I’m on a platform, ten meters above the rest of my life.
Because ten meters is high, but people don’t realize how high until it takes them over fifty steps to climb a tower. They reach the top, look down, and suddenly get that queasy feeling in their stomach. It’s a three-story building. A whole McMansion, stretching between you and the water. Lots of things can happen in ten meters–including a body accelerating to thirty miles per hour, and the water becoming as difficult to crack as the universe’s hardest eggshell.
On the platform, punishments are swift and merciless. Room for error, nonexistent. A bad dive is not just ungainly and humiliating–a bad dive is the end of an athlete’s career. A bad dive is the last dive.
“The pool closes at eight, but take your time, Vandy.” Coach Sima yell up at me.
I smile, palms flush against the coarse edge, and slowly lift my legs in a headstand. My shoulders, core, thighs, they all ache in that good, clenched way that means control. I linger there, a perfect straight line, just to prove to myself that I’m capable of it. I have what it takes. It’s a relief, seeing the world resized. Liberating how insignificant everyone else looks from here, small and irrelevant.
“No hurry at all! I’m not bored out of my mind here!”
I huff and let the rest of the dive flow out of me: pike. Half twist. A somersault. Another. I enter the water with just a handful of bubbles. When I resurface, Coach is crouching poolside. “Vandy.”
I lift myself on the edge, clutching my shoulder. Doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t bleed. Still intact. “Yeah?”
“That is NCAA material there.”
I squeeze water out of my braid.
“Problem is–that’s not the dive I asked you to do.”
I look around. Where did I throw my shammy?
“Vandy. Look at me.”
I do. I have to.
“You can keep doing your emotional support dives, yes. But we have other issues we need to be focusing on.” He taps the spot between my eyes with his knuckles, like he’s inspecting coconuts at the grocery store. “You have to work on what’s in here.”
“I know.”
“Then do as I say, and don’t change the damn dive when you’re up there.” He sighs and shakes his head. “It’s okay, kid. We got time. Go get changed.”
I’m really looking forward to this one! Can’t wait!