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Cash Out
Not yet published
Expected 14 Jan 27Known for his iconic, bestselling books on both relationships (High Fidelity) and sports fandom (Fever Pitch), beloved writer Nick Hornby finally brings his two great talents into one irresistible a hilarious and emotionally gripping novel about soccer, love, and not selling yourself short.
Sophie is not a soccer fan. In fact, the only time she thinks about it is at family gatherings when she gets stuck talking to Uncle Keith about his favorite (losing) team, Leicester City FC. Then Keith places a bet that Leicester City will win the Premier League championship, and because she's been nice to him, he places a bet in Sophie’s name too. The longshot odds are five thousand to one.
But then the odds in Sophies life start to improve in every way. The team starts winning, their wins become a streak, and suddenly the bookies are offering Sophie good money to cash out. Maybe she can finally pull herself and her slacker boyfriend out of the financial holes he keeps digging. In fact, maybe she no longer has to settle for the slacker boyfriend at all.
Soon, Sophie finds herself swept up in the exhilarating world of sport, replete with unexpected connections, spontaneity, and camaraderie. There’s a new man on the horizon. A potential windfall is in reach. Sophie must decide whether to play it safe and cash out, or to risk it all—in soccer, and in life.
A novel for soccer lovers and non-sports fans alike, Cash Out is Nick Hornby on a bombastic, irrepressible, and resonant. A return to form from our most indelible chronicler of life’s inflection points, this novel will sweep you off your feet and onto the pitch.
Sophie is not a soccer fan. In fact, the only time she thinks about it is at family gatherings when she gets stuck talking to Uncle Keith about his favorite (losing) team, Leicester City FC. Then Keith places a bet that Leicester City will win the Premier League championship, and because she's been nice to him, he places a bet in Sophie’s name too. The longshot odds are five thousand to one.
But then the odds in Sophies life start to improve in every way. The team starts winning, their wins become a streak, and suddenly the bookies are offering Sophie good money to cash out. Maybe she can finally pull herself and her slacker boyfriend out of the financial holes he keeps digging. In fact, maybe she no longer has to settle for the slacker boyfriend at all.
Soon, Sophie finds herself swept up in the exhilarating world of sport, replete with unexpected connections, spontaneity, and camaraderie. There’s a new man on the horizon. A potential windfall is in reach. Sophie must decide whether to play it safe and cash out, or to risk it all—in soccer, and in life.
A novel for soccer lovers and non-sports fans alike, Cash Out is Nick Hornby on a bombastic, irrepressible, and resonant. A return to form from our most indelible chronicler of life’s inflection points, this novel will sweep you off your feet and onto the pitch.
- GenresFiction
Kindle Edition
Expected publication January 12, 2027
About the author
Nick Hornby
142 books10.4k followersNicholas Peter John Hornby is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir Fever Pitch (1992) and novels High Fidelity and About a Boy, all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, Hornby was named the 29th most influential person in British culture. He has received two Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for An Education (2009), and Brooklyn (2015).
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4+
Season 2015-16.
Meet Sophie who has never professed an interest in money or football. However, when she meets up with her lovely Uncle Keith at family gatherings, she engages him in his favourite topic – The Foxes - aka Leicester City, partly it has to be said, to avoid her parents boring friends and neighbours. One day, she gets a call from Keith to explain he’s placed two bets on Leicester City to win the Premier League, one for him and one for her. The odds are 5000 to 1, so highly unlikely then and he’s placed £50 each, so if the totally out of the foxy blue happens, they’ll win a quarter of a million quid. Each. She forgets about it for a few months, then people start talking about the team, about Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, the whippet, and other team members, scoring goals and breaking records. The bookies start to get worried and offer a cash out but Keith emphatically says no. Sophie starts to dream ….of Leicester winning, hanging on for the ultimate cash out, oh and ditching no hoper boyfriend Max. What will Sophie do – cash out or risk it all? Will Max stay the course or get the heave ho?
Gary Lineker, Richard III, Walkers crisps, the birthplace of DNA fingerprinting and of course, Leicester City. Full disclaimer, I’m a big football fan, not of Leicester City but a Premier League team (🌳)not too far away and so I guess I’m tailor-made for this. I revel along with Sophie, and the other characters, in this dream season where a team more used to languishing at the bottom of the table disrupt the status quo. If you’re not a football fan, don’t worry, you’ll still love it because although this season is inevitably central to the storyline, it’s principally about the characters, their relationships and how it changes or otherwise the things Sophie believes in. It’s about what she would/wouldn’t do if she cashes out or hangs on. This is so well done as she mulls things over, dreams a little and resists any pressure from certain quarters, mentioning no names.
There are some genuinely nice characters here, particularly Sophie, her uncle and her new friend and fellow Leicester City fan in Neil. I can’t believe Sophie hangs around with Max as frankly, he’s feckless, selfish, never follows through and has few redeemable qualities. However, it does make for some interesting situations where you also want to tear your hair out along with Sophie. It’s full of great authentic dialogue. It’s funny, gentle, relatable and if you happen to love football or any team sport, it’s richly observed in ritual and dynamics. It even becomes tense at times, well, football will do that to you. I should know!
Overall, it’s another cracking entertaining read from Nick Hornby.
PS. Sadly, Leicester City are now languishing in league one, currently sitting in the middle of the table.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin General U.K. /Viking for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.
Season 2015-16.
Meet Sophie who has never professed an interest in money or football. However, when she meets up with her lovely Uncle Keith at family gatherings, she engages him in his favourite topic – The Foxes - aka Leicester City, partly it has to be said, to avoid her parents boring friends and neighbours. One day, she gets a call from Keith to explain he’s placed two bets on Leicester City to win the Premier League, one for him and one for her. The odds are 5000 to 1, so highly unlikely then and he’s placed £50 each, so if the totally out of the foxy blue happens, they’ll win a quarter of a million quid. Each. She forgets about it for a few months, then people start talking about the team, about Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, the whippet, and other team members, scoring goals and breaking records. The bookies start to get worried and offer a cash out but Keith emphatically says no. Sophie starts to dream ….of Leicester winning, hanging on for the ultimate cash out, oh and ditching no hoper boyfriend Max. What will Sophie do – cash out or risk it all? Will Max stay the course or get the heave ho?
Gary Lineker, Richard III, Walkers crisps, the birthplace of DNA fingerprinting and of course, Leicester City. Full disclaimer, I’m a big football fan, not of Leicester City but a Premier League team (🌳)not too far away and so I guess I’m tailor-made for this. I revel along with Sophie, and the other characters, in this dream season where a team more used to languishing at the bottom of the table disrupt the status quo. If you’re not a football fan, don’t worry, you’ll still love it because although this season is inevitably central to the storyline, it’s principally about the characters, their relationships and how it changes or otherwise the things Sophie believes in. It’s about what she would/wouldn’t do if she cashes out or hangs on. This is so well done as she mulls things over, dreams a little and resists any pressure from certain quarters, mentioning no names.
There are some genuinely nice characters here, particularly Sophie, her uncle and her new friend and fellow Leicester City fan in Neil. I can’t believe Sophie hangs around with Max as frankly, he’s feckless, selfish, never follows through and has few redeemable qualities. However, it does make for some interesting situations where you also want to tear your hair out along with Sophie. It’s full of great authentic dialogue. It’s funny, gentle, relatable and if you happen to love football or any team sport, it’s richly observed in ritual and dynamics. It even becomes tense at times, well, football will do that to you. I should know!
Overall, it’s another cracking entertaining read from Nick Hornby.
PS. Sadly, Leicester City are now languishing in league one, currently sitting in the middle of the table.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin General U.K. /Viking for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.
August 27, 2026
I am sorry but this was so dreadful I don’t even know where to begin. It’s a great premise and concept, but the delivery was so bland, and I absolutely despised the way the female protagonist was written - she had less personality than a kettle and unfortunately a classic case of a woman written by a man and I despised it/her.
‘This is a story of sex and money’ she says at the beginning, and that’s then the book fails to deliver on either. Yes we gave some mentions of sex, eg ‘and we had sex at 2am’ and there is the whole build-up of the BIG MONEY which then literally goes nowhere because our heroine has no imagination for what to spend it on.
The whole football part was the only thing propelling the story but it also just felt like recounting of facts and was also very repetitive because Sophie was so moronic despite being well educated and not an imbecile.
In short, this felt like an interesting premise, and maybe would have benefitted from being a short story, but fell flat for me.
‘This is a story of sex and money’ she says at the beginning, and that’s then the book fails to deliver on either. Yes we gave some mentions of sex, eg ‘and we had sex at 2am’ and there is the whole build-up of the BIG MONEY which then literally goes nowhere because our heroine has no imagination for what to spend it on.
The whole football part was the only thing propelling the story but it also just felt like recounting of facts and was also very repetitive because Sophie was so moronic despite being well educated and not an imbecile.
In short, this felt like an interesting premise, and maybe would have benefitted from being a short story, but fell flat for me.
June 18, 2026
My first Nick Hornby novel and what a cracker. Thoroughly enjoyed this story and being taken back to a peak time in footballs history. You really don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy this one, it has everything you want from a heartfelt and funny novel.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A novel about the transformative agony and ecstasy of sports fandom
Nonprofit administrator Sophie Bennett is moving through life on inertia rather than initiative. She has a job she tolerates but doesn’t love, a hapless man-child of a boyfriend she’s long since grown disenchanted with but is too lazy to dump, a polite but distant relationship with her immediate family, and a set of “tradfriends” she considers largely interchangeable. Her life is thus unremarkably “fine” until her favorite uncle, Keith, places a €50 bet in Sophie’s name that his favorite football team, Leicester, will win the Premier League championship at five-thousand-to-one odds.
Sophie, who knows nothing about football and has convinced herself she doesn’t care about money, suddenly finds herself growing deeply invested in the fortunes of her uncle’s team. She’s fed up with being in such financial straits that she can’t afford to buy a nice dress for a friend’s wedding. A bit of cash would come in very handy; a quarter-million euros would be life-changing.
But Sophie doesn’t want to tell her live-in boyfriend about the bet. First, it’s unlikely to pay off. Second, she knows her boyfriend would spend the money on harebrained schemes before it ever hit her bank account. When she sneaks off to a pub to watch a match, she befriends Neil, a die-hard Leicester fan and wealth manager ten years her senior, who opens Sophie’s eyes to what dating a competent man might be like.
“This story is not just about money, though. It’s also about family and relationships, belonging and community, and the point at which blind faith crosses over into stupidity.”
Football gradually reshapes Sophie’s life, replacing her grayscale existence with the alternating ecstasy and sorrow of caring deeply about events beyond her control. It awakens her appreciation for the frontline colleagues at her nonprofit and gives her the confidence to demand more from a domestic partner.
Sophie and Neil navigate their growing attraction despite their differences. Sophie is the daughter of a school headmaster, while Neil is the son of a street vendor. Yet Neil is financially comfortable, while Sophie dreams of affording a €350 dress. Cash Out is at its best when we witness both Neil and Sophie questioning Sophie’s motives: does she actually care about the team, or just the money? And should she take the early payout—at one point over €100K—or stay in and risk everything to prolong the thrill of being invested in what may become the “Greatest Story Ever Told”?
As Uncle Keith’s wager propels Sophie to fully embrace her life, I found myself more invested in the community and Leicester’s unlikely Cinderella story than Sophie herself. Sophie and Neil are both likable enough protagonists, but they remain impalpable to the end. The novel is more about the transformative power of a community built on shared hopes and dreams than about any one individual.
But perhaps that’s Hornby’s point.
“And that’s the trouble with the time of your life: once you have had it, it never comes back.”
Nonprofit administrator Sophie Bennett is moving through life on inertia rather than initiative. She has a job she tolerates but doesn’t love, a hapless man-child of a boyfriend she’s long since grown disenchanted with but is too lazy to dump, a polite but distant relationship with her immediate family, and a set of “tradfriends” she considers largely interchangeable. Her life is thus unremarkably “fine” until her favorite uncle, Keith, places a €50 bet in Sophie’s name that his favorite football team, Leicester, will win the Premier League championship at five-thousand-to-one odds.
Sophie, who knows nothing about football and has convinced herself she doesn’t care about money, suddenly finds herself growing deeply invested in the fortunes of her uncle’s team. She’s fed up with being in such financial straits that she can’t afford to buy a nice dress for a friend’s wedding. A bit of cash would come in very handy; a quarter-million euros would be life-changing.
But Sophie doesn’t want to tell her live-in boyfriend about the bet. First, it’s unlikely to pay off. Second, she knows her boyfriend would spend the money on harebrained schemes before it ever hit her bank account. When she sneaks off to a pub to watch a match, she befriends Neil, a die-hard Leicester fan and wealth manager ten years her senior, who opens Sophie’s eyes to what dating a competent man might be like.
“This story is not just about money, though. It’s also about family and relationships, belonging and community, and the point at which blind faith crosses over into stupidity.”
Football gradually reshapes Sophie’s life, replacing her grayscale existence with the alternating ecstasy and sorrow of caring deeply about events beyond her control. It awakens her appreciation for the frontline colleagues at her nonprofit and gives her the confidence to demand more from a domestic partner.
Sophie and Neil navigate their growing attraction despite their differences. Sophie is the daughter of a school headmaster, while Neil is the son of a street vendor. Yet Neil is financially comfortable, while Sophie dreams of affording a €350 dress. Cash Out is at its best when we witness both Neil and Sophie questioning Sophie’s motives: does she actually care about the team, or just the money? And should she take the early payout—at one point over €100K—or stay in and risk everything to prolong the thrill of being invested in what may become the “Greatest Story Ever Told”?
As Uncle Keith’s wager propels Sophie to fully embrace her life, I found myself more invested in the community and Leicester’s unlikely Cinderella story than Sophie herself. Sophie and Neil are both likable enough protagonists, but they remain impalpable to the end. The novel is more about the transformative power of a community built on shared hopes and dreams than about any one individual.
But perhaps that’s Hornby’s point.
“And that’s the trouble with the time of your life: once you have had it, it never comes back.”
September 19, 2026
I’m not a sporty person. I’ve never been good at sports, and I don’t like watching sporting events. So, there are very few people who talk about sports that I will tolerate. Nick Hornby is one of them. I absolutely loved Fever Pitch (as well as everything else he’s written), so I requested an ARC for Cash Out as soon as I saw it was available from NetGalley.
Sophie’s Uncle Keith loves Leicester City despite their losing streak. Sophie is not a soccer fan, but she always asks Keith about his favorite team at family gatherings. Because of this, Keith places a bet in her name that Leicester will win the Premier League with the odds being five thousand to one.
Sophie is working a job that doesn’t pay much, and she’s in a relationship with a dead-beat boyfriend who keeps digging himself further into debt. So when Leicester starts to win and the bet begins to show promise, she has to decide if she should cash out and take what’s been earned so far or hold out for the possibility for more money.
Throughout the book, Sophie learns about football and makes connections with other Leicester fans. Through the people she meets and promise of an impending fortune, she imagines what she’d like out of life and begins to take action.
Cash Out felt less like a book about soccer and more like a very Nick Hornby book about messy relationships, unexpected connections, and taking chances in life. It was filled with his signature humor, wit, and warmth. Despite not caring for sports, I found myself super invested in the Leicester City’s game and the promise of Sophie’s fortune.
Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the ARC.
Sophie’s Uncle Keith loves Leicester City despite their losing streak. Sophie is not a soccer fan, but she always asks Keith about his favorite team at family gatherings. Because of this, Keith places a bet in her name that Leicester will win the Premier League with the odds being five thousand to one.
Sophie is working a job that doesn’t pay much, and she’s in a relationship with a dead-beat boyfriend who keeps digging himself further into debt. So when Leicester starts to win and the bet begins to show promise, she has to decide if she should cash out and take what’s been earned so far or hold out for the possibility for more money.
Throughout the book, Sophie learns about football and makes connections with other Leicester fans. Through the people she meets and promise of an impending fortune, she imagines what she’d like out of life and begins to take action.
Cash Out felt less like a book about soccer and more like a very Nick Hornby book about messy relationships, unexpected connections, and taking chances in life. It was filled with his signature humor, wit, and warmth. Despite not caring for sports, I found myself super invested in the Leicester City’s game and the promise of Sophie’s fortune.
Thank you to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Nick Hornby will always be famous - and rightly so for "Fever Pitch" his homage to football fandom and h has finally retuned to football in "Cash Out" and it is a corker.
Nobody writes better than Hornby on the travails, stresses and horrors of being a true football fan ' although unfortunately , many far less gifted have tried and failed to do so. This book stands the premise on its head as it is about a total neophyte to the game who knows nothing and cares even less who finds that she is on for a massive windfall of £250,000 should a bet put on for her by her kind uncle Keith on totally unfancied outsiders Leicester City winning the Premier League come off.
The book focuses on her growing passion for the game as the title race hots up but Hornby also deals brilliantly with her relationship with the feckless sponger Max and the growing realisation that she is falling for the Leicester fanatic Neil.
The book is gentle and fun yet packed full of truth about the love for football, bonding with mates and relationships per se.
Nobody writes better than Hornby on the travails, stresses and horrors of being a true football fan ' although unfortunately , many far less gifted have tried and failed to do so. This book stands the premise on its head as it is about a total neophyte to the game who knows nothing and cares even less who finds that she is on for a massive windfall of £250,000 should a bet put on for her by her kind uncle Keith on totally unfancied outsiders Leicester City winning the Premier League come off.
The book focuses on her growing passion for the game as the title race hots up but Hornby also deals brilliantly with her relationship with the feckless sponger Max and the growing realisation that she is falling for the Leicester fanatic Neil.
The book is gentle and fun yet packed full of truth about the love for football, bonding with mates and relationships per se.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I enjoy Nick Hornby's writing and this was a particularly enjoyable book to read. The main character is Sophie, a young woman in an unsatisfying relationship whose partner's wild schemes leave her perpetually hard up. When her uncle Keith, a die hard Leicester City football fan puts a £50 bet on Leicester City to win the premiership on her behalf it seems like a fool's errand until Leicester start to win. Based on Leicester City's actual winning season this was particularly interesting to me as a Leicester woman myself whose family all support the team. It was a good year and it brought back a lot of great memories which meant I enjoyed the book much more than I suspect I would have if I weren't in such a unique position to appreciate it. This is a love story, but not in a conventional sense of the word and I enjoyed the way Hornby documented a fandom and the connection and humanity it brings to people. Having said all that I felt that the characters were rather secondary to the football and there were times when they felt a little thin.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The world needs more Nick Hornby stories. This one is well written, funny, witty, and genuinely page‑turning. Calling it “uncomplicated” feels unfair, because what it really is is effortlessly enjoyable, the kind of book you pick up for entertainment and end up finishing in a single sitting. weekend
We follow Sophie, who suddenly finds herself on the brink of winning a potentially life‑changing amount of money, but only if her uncle’s football prediction comes true. The problem? Sophie knows almost nothing about football. With the stakes so high, she decides she’d better learn. And through her crash course in football, she ends up learning far more about herself: what she wants, what she values, and what she hopes for her future.
Put simply, it’s a really lovely story: warm, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable..
We follow Sophie, who suddenly finds herself on the brink of winning a potentially life‑changing amount of money, but only if her uncle’s football prediction comes true. The problem? Sophie knows almost nothing about football. With the stakes so high, she decides she’d better learn. And through her crash course in football, she ends up learning far more about herself: what she wants, what she values, and what she hopes for her future.
Put simply, it’s a really lovely story: warm, funny, and thoroughly enjoyable..
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I absolutely loved reading Cash Out by Nick Hornby.
I’m not a football fan at all. But, just as he did with Fever Pitch, Hornby managed to really make me become so invested in the characters and care about football. In this case, whether Leicester City would win the Premiership.
I loved Sophie and hoped against hope that Leicester City would win so she could change her situation. It felt very believable, and the option of cashing out and when to cash out always lingering in Sophie’s mind. I found myself wondering what I would do and when I would cash out, or whether I’d wait it and out but possibly risk losing everything.
This was such a great read, and I’m sure it will be adapted for the screen soon.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Penguin, for making this e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I’m not a football fan at all. But, just as he did with Fever Pitch, Hornby managed to really make me become so invested in the characters and care about football. In this case, whether Leicester City would win the Premiership.
I loved Sophie and hoped against hope that Leicester City would win so she could change her situation. It felt very believable, and the option of cashing out and when to cash out always lingering in Sophie’s mind. I found myself wondering what I would do and when I would cash out, or whether I’d wait it and out but possibly risk losing everything.
This was such a great read, and I’m sure it will be adapted for the screen soon.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Penguin, for making this e-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Alleluia Nick Hornby has written another book about football! No one communicates the supporter’s obsession with their team as well as he does. Unlike ‘Fever Pitch’, this is fiction and tells the story of Sophie’s conversion from mildly interested onlooker to committed fan during Leicester City’s remarkable season of 2016. The fact that she stands to win a quarter of a million pounds if Leicester win the league initially fuels her growing interest, but Nick also writes characters very well and is able to chart Sophie’s personal development alongside her initiation into football fandom. You don’t have to be a football supporter to enjoy this book, there’s a lot of other stuff going on in Sophie’s life, but it’ll give you an insight into the experience of being hopelessly devoted to a team.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I really enjoyed 'Cash Out' - it helps that I'm a huge football fan, that the story of Leicester winning the league was a ridiculous fairytale anyway, and that (despite it only being ten years ago) it's somehow nostalgic already, but the story that Nick Hornby weaves around that football season is decent too. The two main protagonists are likeable, and I was turning pages quickly to find out what would happen come the end of the season.
The only frustrating thing for me was how one note the character of Max was - I couldn't buy him and Sophie together in the first place, and certainly not by halfway through.
But overall this was a lovely, gentle, enjoyable read.
The only frustrating thing for me was how one note the character of Max was - I couldn't buy him and Sophie together in the first place, and certainly not by halfway through.
But overall this was a lovely, gentle, enjoyable read.
Read
August 13, 2026Cash Out by Nick Hornby is a stand alone sports romance published by Penguin Books Ltd.
Sophie never really thoight about money, like big money or sports like soccer.
But when someone ahem looking at you uncle Keith, places a bet in her name all bets are off. When the team suddenly starts winning, bookmakers want her to cash out, Sophie starts to spend time and energy on deciding what she's about to do.
Entertaining, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, well written, great characters, 4.5 stars.
Sophie never really thoight about money, like big money or sports like soccer.
But when someone ahem looking at you uncle Keith, places a bet in her name all bets are off. When the team suddenly starts winning, bookmakers want her to cash out, Sophie starts to spend time and energy on deciding what she's about to do.
Entertaining, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, well written, great characters, 4.5 stars.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Riverhead and Netgalley for an eARC of Cash Out by Nick Hornby. I loved this light and fast-paced literary fiction novel about a character, Sophie, swept up in the fandom of soccer because of a bet her uncle placed as well as a new character she meets. I loved reading Sophie's thoughts as she enters this new world and slowly changes her perceptions about something that was just in her periphery. The experience was fun getting to see how Sophie changed by the time the novel ended. I highly recommend Cash Out for readers who love breezy literary novels.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
In typical Nick Hornby fashion, this has all the feels. The "warm fuzzies" to borrow a phrase from the book. Whether or not you followed the 2015/16 Premiership season (and probably even better if you didn't), it's impossible not to get caught up in the hope, the despair, the camaraderie and the pure joy of it. Nobody writes about the highs and lows of football like Hornby and the genius of this book is to pit that particular season against the humdrum of life and the possibility of cashing out or giving up hope at any point. Recommended for anyone with a heart.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4.25: What a great book! Nick Hornby is one of my favorites, and this one did not disappoint! The narrator Sophie stands to win big if a football (soccer) bet placed by her uncle pans out. She becomes a huge fan as a result and discovers a new side of herself. The tension and excitement for the football season is palpable in this short novel, and I flew through the pages. I think readers will enjoy this whether or not they are sports fans. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
The premise sounded really fun, but this was not the book for me. I know nothing about soccer/football, but I guess I was hoping that the other parts of the story would carry me through (which it did not). Our main character was boring, her boyfriend was annoying, and then the buildup and agony over the money ended up being lackluster. Also, did we have to bring COVID into it at the end? I could've done without that.
Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 13, 2026
An easy, breezy one about a moment in recent sporting history that even those of us who do not pay attention to sport (eg. me) would be able to remember. The football storyline actually felt secondary to the more human elements (Sophie’s relationship with Max being a particular highlight), but it did all blend together seamlessly, in the dry/heartfelt combo that Nick Hornby manages to write so well.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Now I am not a football fan, but even I had clocked that Leicester had done something a few years ago, something to do with Gary Lineker in his pants? This is a good Nick Hornby story. At first sight it is about football, but you get swept along with the characters and their relationships, so that the sport and fandom is secondary to the main tale. All in all, a lovely read.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
It's always a pleasure to read a new Nick Hornby.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews