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Verdict: A forced-proximity slow burn carried almost entirely by its hero — twenty-seven of thirty reviewers name Ryan Shay as the reason to read it — undercut by a heroine the same sample finds the weak half of the couple.
Best for: Readers who want love expressed as acts of service rather than declarations, who like two adults who actually communicate, and who do not mind a book where the physical chemistry starts long before either character admits anything.
Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — “explicit open door” on romance.io, from 790 reader ratings)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.1/5 — a 4.39 Goodreads average across 420,087 ratings, marked down for a final third eight of thirty reviewers say drags)
Tropes: Slow burn, fake relationship, forced proximity, roommates, grumpy-sunshine, sibling’s best friend, basketball, praise kink, dual POV, interconnected standalone.
This is an LRR evidence review. We have not read this book cover to cover; every claim below is built from named public sources — Goodreads, StoryGraph, romance.io, Amazon, Libro.fm and the author’s own published warning set — and where the evidence stops, we say so rather than filling the gap.
The Right Move is Liz Tomforde’s second Windy City book and the most-read entry in the series: Ryan Shay is a professional basketball captain newly made team captain and determined to be nothing but professional about it, and Indy Ivers is his teammate’s sister, who moves into his apartment.
It carries a 4.39 average across 420,087 Goodreads ratings — the largest readership on our slow-burn shelf — with 4.33 on StoryGraph from 20,200 reviews, 4.29 on romance.io from 790, and 4.5 from 127,659 Amazon ratings, at a 1% did-not-finish rate. The interesting thing in the numbers is a small disagreement: 28 romance.io readers tagged it slow burn and five tagged it insta-love. That is not a contradiction, and working out why is the most useful thing this review does.
What Is The Right Move About?
This is a basketball romance in the Chicago-set Windy City series, and like the others it is an interconnected standalone with its own couple. The structure is a trope stack rather than a single premise: a fake relationship, forced proximity through shared living, and a grumpy-sunshine temperament clash, all layered on a professional obligation the hero takes extremely seriously.
Ryan is introduced through the standard he holds himself to and cannot loosen; Indy through what she is between — jobs, plans, homes. The book is dual POV, first person, with romance.io carrying dual, first-person and male-POV tags. That matters here more than usual: because you get Ryan’s interior life, you can see him behaving lovingly long before he will say anything, and that gap between behaviour and admission is the whole design.
What Makes This Slow-Burn Sports Romance Work
- Ryan Shay is a near-unanimous strength: twenty-seven of the thirty most-visible Goodreads reviewers name him specifically. That is the highest single-character praise concentration we have recorded on any book in this cluster.
- Love as acts of service: around twenty-four reviewers name the quiet, practical version of romance the book runs on rather than grand gestures. It is also the mechanism that produces the insta-love minority — he is behaving devotedly long before either of them names it.
- Two adults who actually talk: about twelve reviewers name the healthy communication between the leads. In a subgenre that runs on withheld information, that is a deliberate and unusual choice.
- The trope stack does real work: fake relationship is tagged 71 times, forced proximity 63 and grumpy-sunshine 72, against 28 for slow burn — the delay is emotional rather than physical, and the tags show it.
- The author publishes her content warnings: a short, specific set on her own site, including a parenthetical that pre-empts the obvious question about cheating. Almost nobody else in this cluster does this.
Book Synopsis
Ryan Shay has just been made captain of his professional basketball team, and he intends to be exactly the captain the job requires: disciplined, unavailable, and entirely uninterested in anything that could become a distraction. He has structured his life around that, and the structure is the point.
Indy Ivers is his teammate’s sister. She is between things — a relationship, a job, a plan — and she needs somewhere to live. Ryan has a spare room and no reasonable way to say no, and so the woman he has been carefully not thinking about moves into his apartment.
Then there is a reason to pretend. A public arrangement that suits them both, at least on paper: she needs the cover, he needs the appearance of stability, and both of them are very clear that it is a performance. They share a kitchen, a story, and a set of rules that seemed straightforward when they were written down. The question the book runs on is not whether they want each other. It is which of them will admit it first, and what admitting it will cost the season.
My Review
Let me start with the number, because it is the largest single-character result in anything we have surveyed: twenty-seven of the thirty most-visible Goodreads reviewers name Ryan Shay specifically as the reason to read this book. Not the plot, not the trope, not the series. Him. And when you read what they name about him, it is consistent — about twenty-four describe love expressed through practical, unglamorous acts of service rather than declarations.
The second real strength is that these two people talk to each other. About twelve reviewers name the healthy communication, which sounds like faint praise and is not: forced-proximity fake-dating romance almost always runs on withheld information, and this book declines to. The tension comes from professional consequence rather than from either lead being stupid on purpose.
Now the split that brought me here. romance.io readers tagged this book slow burn 28 times and insta-love five times, and on Goodreads roughly fourteen of thirty praise the slow burn while about three flag the instant attraction as undermining the fake-dating premise. Two independent reader pools reproducing nearly the same ratio is not noise. The explanation is that the two groups are measuring different clocks. The trope stack puts these two in a performed relationship and a shared apartment from the opening pages, so physical and romantic signalling is immediate and contractual. The emotional admission is withheld for hundreds of pages. If you index on “when do they first read as a couple,” you log insta-love. If you index on “when do they mean it,” you log slow burn. Both readings are accurate about different things, and about fifteen percent of taggers land on the first one.
Where it struggles is length and shape. Around eight of thirty say the book is too long, and about seven say the final third specifically drags — which is worth taking seriously because roughly twelve others praise the pacing as smooth, making this a genuine split rather than a fringe complaint. Three say the third-act conflict feels manufactured, and three more say there is not much plot outside the romance.
The one asymmetry nobody should be surprised by is the couple. The book’s greatest strength and its most common character complaint are the two halves of the same relationship: Ryan at twenty-seven mentions, Indy at six reviewers finding her annoying or hard to like. By reader consensus, the heroine is the weak link in her own love story.
My honest note: One of the best heroes in contemporary sports romance, in a book that is a hundred pages longer than it needs to be. If Ryan is what you are here for — and most readers are — it delivers completely.
| Element | In The Right Move |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Ryan Shay & Indy Ivers — a newly appointed basketball captain and his teammate’s sister, sharing an apartment and a story |
| Core tropes | Slow burn, fake relationship, forced proximity, roommates, grumpy-sunshine, sibling’s best friend, praise kink |
| Setting | Contemporary Chicago — a professional basketball season and one apartment |
| Heat level | 4/5 — “explicit open door” (romance.io, 790 ratings). Praise kink is tagged 55 times |
| Burn speed | SLOW — Slow-Burn Signal 3.5 (28 slow-burn tags / 790 romance.io ratings), with a real 5-tag insta-love minority. The physical signalling is immediate; the emotional admission is not |
| POV | Dual, first person — you see the hero being devoted long before he says so |
| Pace | 1% did-not-finish across 20,200 StoryGraph reviews. Twelve of thirty reviewers call the pacing smooth; eight say it drags in the final third |
| Series | Windy City book 2, interconnected standalone. Complete arc, HEA, an epilogue eight of thirty reviewers single out, no cliffhanger |
| Kindle Unlimited | Included, verified on the Amazon product page on 22 August 2026 |
| Content notes | Author-published (verified complete), verbatim from liztomforde.com: “Explicit Sex Scenes”, “Mentions of Infertility”, “Mentions of Cheating (off-page, no cheating between main characters)”, “Mentions of Anxiety and Depression”. StoryGraph’s tiered warning block did not render for this title, so reader-side corroboration is thin — that is a gap in our data, not evidence of low-risk content |
Is The Right Move on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes. The Right Move is included with Kindle Unlimited as of 22 August 2026, verified on its own Amazon product page by reading the Kindle format swatch rather than trusting a search tile. Check the current status on Amazon before you download — with a television adaptation in development for this series, enrolment is exactly the kind of thing that can change quietly.
Audio is not included and we are not implying it is. The audiobook is a Tantor Media release and sells separately; there is a Libro.fm edition, linked below, which is a purchase rather than a subscription benefit.
How Spicy Is The Right Move?
Band 4 of 5 on romance.io, labelled “explicit open door,” from 790 reader ratings, and the author confirms it herself — the first line of her published warning set is “Explicit Sex Scenes.” The more specific thing the tag data tells you is that praise kink is tagged 55 times, which is a higher count than slow burn gets on this book. If that is a draw for you, this is the title in the series that readers associate it with; if it is not your thing, you now know.
The elements worth flagging in advance come from the author’s own list rather than from readers: mentions of infertility, mentions of anxiety and depression, and mentions of cheating — with her own parenthetical clarifying that it is off-page and not between the main characters. That parenthetical is doing real work, because “cheating” on a warning list usually sends readers away. StoryGraph’s tiered warnings did not render for this title, so we have no independent reader-side corroboration to offer; that is a gap in our sweep, not a clean bill of health. For the same band inside a mafia arranged marriage, The Sweetest Oblivion is the closest comparison on our shelf.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you want a hero whose love language is doing things, you like couples who communicate instead of withholding, you enjoy a dense trope stack, and praise kink is a feature rather than a surprise.
You may want to skip it if: immediate physical chemistry breaks a slow burn for you, a heroine you find grating will sink the book, you want a plot outside the relationship, or a final third that loses momentum will lose you.
In short: one of the best heroes in contemporary sports romance, in a book about a hundred pages longer than it needs to be.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)
Three years after publication this book no longer has discourse of its own — the conversation has moved to series level, and the driver is screen news: trade reporting in May 2026 that Amazon MGM is developing a Windy City television series. As the most-rated volume in that series at 420,087 Goodreads ratings, this is the title most likely to absorb adaptation-driven readers. In the interest of accuracy, the paywalled trade story was not reachable from our research environment and we are reporting it from the headline and secondary coverage rather than from the article itself. There is no Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal, Booklist or All About Romance review of this book; coverage is blog-tier, which is normal for a self-published-origin BookTok title. Reddit: unknown / not accessible — reddit.com is blocked from our research environment and nothing has been substituted for it.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): Ryan Shay, at twenty-seven of thirty — near-unanimous, and the strongest single result in our whole survey. Then quiet love and acts of service, at about twenty-four. Then healthy communication between the leads at about twelve, character depth and realistic flaws at about eleven, emotional growth at about ten, domestic fluff at about nine, and the fake-dating execution at about eight. The recurring words are practical ones: he notices, he fixes, he shows up.
What readers argue about and complain about: Length, first — about eight of thirty say five hundred pages is too many. Second, the final third, which about seven say drags. Note that this is a real split rather than a consensus: roughly twelve reviewers praise the pacing as smooth and natural, so eight against twelve is a genuine disagreement about the same book. Third, and structurally awkward for a romance, the heroine: about six find Indy annoying or hard to like, making her the weak half of the couple by reader consensus while the hero is the strongest element in the book. Then smaller ones — about four report an emotional disconnect, three call the third-act conflict manufactured, and three say there is little plot beyond the relationship. Finally, the burn split: fourteen of thirty praise the slow burn, three flag the instant attraction, and romance.io reproduces almost exactly that ratio at 28 to 5. Roughly fifteen percent of readers experience this as an immediate romance, and they are not wrong — they are timing a different thing.
On audio: narrated by Juniper Young and Sean Crisden, 14 hours 18 minutes, published unabridged by Tantor Media in October 2023.
Prefer audio? Listen to The Right Move on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
The series question everyone should ask first: Windy City books are interconnected standalones with a new couple each time, so this reads perfectly well alone and is the most common entry point. It resolves completely — full HEA, an epilogue that about eight of thirty reviewers name as a highlight, no cliffhanger. If you continue, Rewind It Back is book five and rates higher at 4.44, though we would not call it a slow burn; the series was sold as finished at five and the author has since announced more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Right Move on Kindle Unlimited?
Yes, included with Kindle Unlimited as of 22 August 2026, verified on its own Amazon product page rather than a search tile. Enrolment changes without notice. The audiobook is a separate Tantor Media purchase and is not included with a subscription.
Is The Right Move a slow burn or insta-love?
Both labels appear, and the reason is that readers are timing different things. romance.io raters tagged it slow burn 28 times and insta-love five. The physical and contractual signalling starts immediately because of the fake relationship and shared apartment; the emotional admission is withheld for hundreds of pages.
How spicy is it?
Band 4 of 5 on romance.io, labelled explicit open door, and the author’s own warning set opens with explicit sex scenes. Praise kink is tagged 55 times — more often than slow burn — so that is the specific thing readers associate with this book.
Do I need to read Windy City in order?
No. Each book follows a new couple and this one is the most common entry point to the series, as well as the most-rated volume in it. It resolves completely on its own.
Is there a cliffhanger?
No. It is a complete arc with a full HEA and an epilogue that about eight of the thirty most-visible reviewers name as a highlight. About three found the third-act conflict manufactured, but nothing is left unresolved.
What are the content warnings?
The author publishes them on her own site, verbatim: explicit sex scenes, mentions of infertility, mentions of cheating (off-page, with none between the main characters), and mentions of anxiety and depression. StoryGraph’s reader-tiered warnings did not render for this title, so we have no independent corroboration to add.
Is there an audiobook on Libro.fm?
Yes. It is narrated by Juniper Young and Sean Crisden, runs 14 hours 18 minutes, and was published unabridged by Tantor Media in October 2023. We verified the author on the Libro.fm page before linking it.
If You Loved The Right Move, Read These Next
If the hero is what you want more of, Behind the Net by Stephanie Archer runs the same quiet-devotion register at the same heat band with a goalie instead of a captain. If the series cast is the draw, Rewind It Back is the Windy City finale and the emotional high point. And if you want the same forced proximity with a genuinely hostile opening, From Lukov with Love gives you six years of documented dislike. All three sit on our best slow-burn romance on Kindle Unlimited guide, and the wider shelf is in Book Reviews.
The Bottom Line
This book is built to prove that a romance hero can be compelling without being difficult, and on the evidence it succeeds better than almost anything else in the subgenre: twenty-seven of thirty reviewers name Ryan Shay, twenty-four name the practical way he expresses love, and twelve name the fact that these two adults simply talk to each other. Against that, it runs long enough for eight reviewers to say so, the final third loses momentum for about seven, and the heroine is the half of the couple readers find hardest to like. If a hero who shows up is what you want from a romance, this is the one. Check The Right Move on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, The Right Move ranks as a hero-led forced-proximity slow burn — carrying the strongest single-character consensus we have measured, held back by length and an unloved heroine, and best approached for Ryan and the quiet devotion rather than for plot.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ 4.39 Goodreads average across 420,087 ratings
- ✓ 1% did-not-finish across 20,200 StoryGraph reviews
- ✓ Twenty-seven of thirty reviewers name the hero
- ✓ Eight say it is too long, seven that the end drags
Romance ★★★★☆ 4.4/5
- ✓ 28 slow-burn tags against 5 insta-love, 790 raters
- ✓ Acts-of-service devotion named by about twenty-four
- ✓ Healthy communication named by about twelve
- ✓ Roughly 15% of taggers experience it as immediate
Characters ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Ryan Shay named by twenty-seven of thirty
- ✓ Character depth and real flaws named by eleven
- ✓ Emotional growth named by about ten
- ✓ Six find the heroine annoying or hard to like
Writing ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ Twelve reviewers call the pacing smooth and natural
- ✓ Domestic fluff named by about nine
- ✓ Fake-dating execution named by about eight
- ✓ Three say there is little plot outside the romance
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.2/5
- ✓ Quiet-love register is the most-cited strength
- ✓ Author names infertility and anxiety in her warnings
- ✓ Epilogue singled out by about eight reviewers
- ✓ About four report an emotional disconnect
Heat Level ★★★★☆ 4/5
- ✓ romance.io band 4, “explicit open door”, 790 raters
- ✓ Praise kink tagged 55 times, more than slow burn
- ✓ Author’s own warning set confirms explicit content
- ✓ StoryGraph reader warning tiers did not render
Ending ★★★★☆ 4.3/5
- ✓ Complete arc with a full HEA and an epilogue
- ✓ No cliffhanger and no required reading order
- ✓ Epilogue named as a highlight by about eight
- ✓ Three call the third-act conflict manufactured
Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ Most-rated book in the Windy City series
- ✓ Amazon MGM developing a series adaptation
- ✓ Libro.fm audiobook offers a second route in
- ✓ Around 500 pages discourages a quick revisit
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