Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood-352 pages

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18-year-old Mallory Greenleaf swore off chess after she became estranged with her dad and he later died. However, her friend Easton gets her to play in a one-off charity chess tournament and the current World #1 chess player, Nolan Sawyer, shows up. Mallory ends up playing and defeating Nolan in the finals of the tournament and he can't get her out of his head afterwards. Mallory is reluctantly sucked back into the world of chess and ends up playing several tournaments. She is also trying to take care of her family at home (her mom has arthritis and she has two younger sisters). Will Mallory and Nolan end up together? Will she stick to chess this time and go pro? I enjoyed reading this book and I intend to read more of Ali Hazelwood's novels. 

The Partisan by Patrick Worrall

 The Partisan by Patrick Worrall -383 pages

This is a Cold War thriller mostly set in 1961 as tensions between the Soviets and the West seem to be leading to nuclear war. It follows two young chess players caught between opposing intelligence agencies and a former Lithuanian partisan who fought both the Germans and Soviets in World War II and its aftermath. The characters' backgrounds and motivations were interesting as well as the time periods of early 1960s London and World War II in Eastern Europe.