seriously romantic: wilder by rebecca yarros

it's going to be a wild wednesday around these parts, because i've just binge-read the renegades series by rebecca yarros and the log line reads something like this "a group of extreme sports stars pledge to finish college while spending a year at sea, filming a documentary, and falling in love."

the series kicks off with wilder, and our first renegade is paxton wilder. he's the unofficial leader of the gang, mainly because his family's money is bankrolling the school and the documentary. he's also carrying a lot of guilt and responsibility and pressure on his shoulders. he feels responsible for nick's accident, he feels responsible for landon's heartbreak, and he has to get passing grades and avoid scandal in order to keep everyone on the documentary crew employed. basically pax feels like he's at the center of everyone's problems and he's got a plan to fix things for everyone.

but he needs help to do it. and leah baxter is the key to it all.

the last thing leah expects when she starts out her dream year abroad on a ship is to be upgraded to a vip suite. and getting mixed up with a bunch of extreme sports enthusiasts is so not her thing. in fact, it's so far out of her comfort zone that she immediately tries to confront pax about it. the last thing she expects is to find herself zip-lining onto the cruise ship from the port. she's afraid of heights. actually, that isn't quite descriptive enough. she's fucking terrified of them. with good reason.

but she needs to work with pax in order to keep her scholarship. and somehow she finds herself drawn into his world. it doesn't hurt that they have insane chemistry. or that every time pax pushes her to try something new or risky leah feels like she's coming back to life. it's possible that with pax she'll find a way to heal from her deepest hurts.

on top of everything else pax is dealing with there is someone who is targeting the renegades and pax specifically by sabotaging several of their stunts. everything comes to a head when pax is at an exhibition where he intends to be the first person to complete three-forward rotations while airborne on a motorbike. it's a trick his friend nick broke his back trying to attempt. to say that the stakes are high almost feels like an understatement.

the romance here works because it is as adrenaline-fueled as the story and when coupled with these two characters with insane amounts of chemistry, you find yourself with your heart pounding, fully invested in how everything turns out.