The Risk

What's inside (7 sections)

1. Fake dates, real dates
2. A coach's daughter and a Harvard forward
3. Mics, internships, and saying the sharp thing
4. When fun turns into feelings
5. What worked and who should skip it
6. Key takeaways
7. FAQ

I picked up The Risk by Elle Kennedy because I liked The Chase and wanted more Briar U without rereading Off Campus. This one was first published in 2019 by Bloom Books, a 400 page paperback with ISBN 9781775293989. It is book two of Briar U, set at Briar University after The Chase. Brenna Jensen needs an internship. Jake Connelly plays for Harvard, which at Briar is close to a crime. They agree to fake date. I read most of it on a rainy Sunday and kept laughing at Brenna, even when I wanted to shake her.

Brenna is the daughter of Briar's head hockey coach, Chad Jensen. That fact shapes everything. She grew up in rinks. She knows systems and stats better than half the guys on the roster. She co hosts a campus sports show and wants a career in broadcasting, not a sideline job smiling while men explain icing to her. She is loud, blunt about sex, funny on air, and prickly in person. People call her a bad girl and she leans into it because it beats explaining herself.

Jake Connelly is Harvard's star forward. Tall, cocky grin, quick hands around the net, reputation for partying and puck bunnies. He is also the younger brother type who grew up chasing approval. His father, Randall Connelly, is wealthy and controlling and treats hockey like an investment. Jake plays with an edge because he is trying to prove he belongs at Harvard and might have a shot beyond college, while knowing his dad sees him as a line on a resume.

They meet badly, which suits them. Brenna has Jake on as a guest or runs into him around the Briar Harvard rivalry week, and they trade insults fast. She thinks he is arrogant. He thinks she is performing toughness. Both are partly right. What neither expects is that Brenna will need him.

The internship plot gives the book its engine. Brenna wants a summer spot with a sports network, the kind of internship that turns into contacts and maybe a job. The executive she interviews with is old school. He likes the idea of Brenna settling down, being respectable, bringing a nice boyfriend to a dinner or a station event. It is gross and Brenna knows it is gross, but she wants the spot badly enough to play along. She does not have a nice boyfriend. She has a vibrator collection, a best friend named Summer, and a dorm room full of hockey talk.

Summer Di Laurentis, from book one, is still around with Fitzy, Colin Fitzgerald. They function here as the stable couple who tease Brenna and give advice she ignores. Summer tells her to be honest. Fitzy tells Jake to stop acting dumb. The group scenes at their house feel lived in. Pizza boxes, game film on a laptop, someone stealing fries. Brenna crashes there a lot. She loves them and hates that they are happy while she is scrambling.

So Brenna makes Jake an offer. Pretend to be my boyfriend for the internship stuff. Show up when I need you, look respectable, charm the executive. Jake counters. For every fake date, he gets a real date. One for one. No faking on the real ones.

She says yes before thinking it through. That is very Brenna.

Fake dates, real dates

The arrangement starts as comedy and stays funny for a long stretch. Fake dates include a network dinner where Jake wears a blazer and behaves, which Brenna finds deeply suspicious. He shakes hands. He asks polite questions. He does not trash talk Briar in front of her boss. She keeps waiting for him to slip and call someone a plug. He does not. After, in the car, they drop the act and bicker about who was more fake. Those car rides carry a lot of charge. Close quarters, still dressed up, both annoyed that the other scrubbed up well.

Real dates are Jake's pick. He takes her to a quiet diner off campus where Harvard guys do not go. He takes her skating when the rink is empty, no pads, just gliding and showing off a little. He cooks once, badly, and she fixes it while mocking his knife skills. He asks about her show. He actually listens to an episode and calls out a take she phoned in. She hates that he noticed.

Kennedy switches points of view between them, which helps. Brenna's chapters are rapid fire jokes with a defensive snap underneath. Jake's chapters are slower. He notices details like the way she goes quiet when her dad texts.

Sex comes early and often, and it is explicit. This is adult new adult, open door, dirty talk, consent checked but not paused for a seminar. If you want fade to black, stop here. If you liked Off Campus heat, this matches it. What I liked is that the scenes show personality. Brenna directs. Jake teases. They laugh mid kiss. Once, a condom wrapper sticks to a sock and they both lose it. It feels like college kids who like each other, not models posing.

The fake versus real line blurs fast. Brenna tells herself the real dates do not count because she agreed under pressure. Jake tells himself he is just trying to get her to admit she likes him. Friends notice. Summer asks Brenna why she smiles at her phone. A Harvard teammate asks Jake why he is skipping parties to drive to Briar. Both lie badly. Brenna says it is networking. Jake says it is scouting the enemy. Nobody buys it.

A coach's daughter and a Harvard forward

The hockey rivalry does real work here, not just set dressing. Briar versus Harvard matters to both schools. For Brenna, dating a Harvard player is betrayal on two levels. Her dad coaches Briar. Her friends bleed Briar blue. Sleeping with the enemy is funny in texts and stressful in daylight. For Jake, sneaking around with the Briar coach's daughter is locker room dynamite. If his Harvard teammates find out he is soft on Briar, he will hear about it every skate.

Coach Jensen is strict but not a cartoon. He loves Brenna. He also has rules. No hockey players. He has seen guys use his daughter to get to him, or dump her when the season gets busy. He tells himself he is protecting her. Brenna hears control. They fight in shorthand because they have had the same fight for years. He says, focus on school. She says, I am focused, you just do not like how. He pays for things and holds it over her without meaning to. She takes the help and resents it.

I believed their history. He taught her to skate. She charted faceoffs for him in high school. Then she grew up and wanted a mic, not a clipboard, and he did not adjust. When he criticizes her show as too opinionated, she hears that girls should be sideline sweet. When she mocks Briar's power play on air, he hears disloyalty. Both miss the point. He is scared she will get hurt by the sport that raised her. She is scared she will need his permission forever.

Jake's family pressure runs parallel. Randall Connelly calls with scores and stock talk in the same breath. He wants Jake at Harvard for the name, then pro if profitable, then business if not. Love does not enter the calls. Jake's mom is softer but distant, caught between them. Jake handles it by joking with teammates and going quiet at night. Brenna is one of the first people who asks what he wants after hockey. He does not have an answer and that scares him more than a big defenseman.

On ice scenes feel specific. A Harvard practice with bag skates after a loss. A Briar film session where Jensen rewinds a turnover three times. Brenna calling a game for her show, trying to stay neutral while Jake scores against her dad's team.

The rivalry game in the middle is the best set piece. Brenna sits in the press area with a headset. Jake scores early and does not celebrate big. Later he takes a late hit and stays down a beat too long. Brenna forgets to be neutral and stands up. That hour after, when she does not answer his I am fine text because her hands shake, tells you where she is.

Fair point on sports logic. Travel between Briar and Harvard is treated as easy in a way that made me laugh. Guys drive back and forth for dates and practices like Boston traffic does not exist. Practice schedules bend for romance. If you played college sports, you will roll your eyes. I chose to accept it as romcom physics and moved on.

Mics, internships, and saying the sharp thing

Brenna's broadcasting ambition is my favorite thread. She is good on air because she is blunt and prepared. She watches tape. She tracks zone entries. She will criticize a Briar player her dad coaches, which takes guts. Her co hosts like her but sometimes use her as the hot take girl. A producer tells her to smile more. A commenter calls her shrill. She reads the comment live and answers with stats, which earns her fans and one angry email from an alum.

The internship interview process stretches across the book. First meeting, follow up dinner, shadow day at the network. Each time Brenna brings Jake as the respectable boyfriend prop. Each time she hates herself a little. Jake plays the part well, which makes it worse. He talks about teamwork and discipline. He wears the blazer. The executive loves him. Brenna gets closer to the spot while feeling further from why she wanted it. She wanted to be taken seriously for her brain. Now she is being taken seriously because she has a handsome date.

There is a strong scene in a control room. Brenna shadows a female producer who runs the show with calm hand signals. Brenna leaves buzzing, thinking about rundowns instead of boys. I liked seeing ambition as its own hunger, not just a reason to meet a guy.

Summer helps here too. Summer knows image pressure from her politician father, so she spots Brenna performing respectability. She asks gentle questions. Are you sure you want a job you had to lie to get. Brenna deflects with jokes about Jake's hair. Summer lets it go once, then pushes harder later.

When fun turns into feelings

Around the two thirds mark, both stop pretending. Jake tells Brenna the real dates are his favorite part of the week, more than games. That admission costs him because his game slips right after. He starts thinking instead of reacting. He takes a bad penalty chasing a hit. Harvard's coach benches him for a period. His father calls and says focus. Jake hears, you are soft. He does not tell Brenna how loud that call was.

Brenna pulls back first. She gets good news about the internship and immediately thinks about how she lied to get it. She also gets a warning from her dad, not about Jake yet, just general. Stay away from distractions. She translates that to, you will mess this up like you mess up boys. She cancels a real date to prep for an interview. Then cancels another because she is scared she likes him too much. Jake notices the pattern. Fake dates she keeps. Real dates she drops. That tells him where he ranks.

They fight properly for the first time without jokes to soften it. He says, you use me when cameras are on and hide me when they are off. She says, you knew the deal. He says, the deal changed and you know it. She says, I cannot lose this internship and my dad in one month. He leaves. No slammed door theatrics. Just a quiet, I am not doing one for one anymore.

The breakup stretch is short but sore. Brenna throws herself into work and cries into takeout at Summer's. Fitzy talks to Jake separately. Hockey boys giving feelings advice is a Kennedy staple and it works because Fitzy is blunt.

Jake tries plain. He shows up at Briar and waits through her show taping. He tells her he does not want to be a secret or a prop. Brenna panics and picks a fight about Harvard loyalty to avoid answering. Telling her dad means risking money, housing help, and the one parent who shows up.

The dad confrontation lands harder than expected. Brenna tells Coach Jensen about Jake all at once, internship lie included. He blows up about the lying to a network. She says she learned the game from him, charm the right people. That line silences the room. He says, bring him to dinner and do not lie to me again.

Jake's side resolves messier, which I liked. He does not fix his dad. Randall still calls with business hockey talk. Jake sets a boundary instead of winning approval. He says he will play his way and handle school, and if his dad cannot enjoy a game without grading it, Jake will call less. It is not a hug and learn scene. It is a young man deciding whose voice lives in his head during a shift. That felt honest.

They get back together without a grand speech on ice. Brenna shows up at Harvard after a game, waiting by the tunnel where girlfriends wait, visible. She apologizes for hiding him. He apologizes for pushing when she was scared. They agree to real dating, no tally.

The epilogue jumps a bit forward. Internship secured, though Brenna has to own the lie in a follow up meeting and almost loses it. She keeps it by being good on a trial assignment, not by Jake charming anyone. Jake's season ends decently, not magically. Summer and Fitzy host a cookout. Hunter and Demi orbit, setting up the next book. Brenna and Jake bicker about where to watch film. The last image is domestic, not dramatic. Two people on a couch, arguing about hockey, feet tangled.

What worked and who should skip it

Brenna carries this book. She is funny without being a quip machine, sexual without apology, ambitious without being punished for it. I liked that Kennedy lets her be wrong a lot. She lies, she hides, she uses Jake. The book does not excuse it because she is charming. Summer calls her. Jake calls her. Her dad calls her. She has to earn the internship and the guy by telling the truth, which is rarer than it should be in fake dating books.

Jake surprised me. Harvard hockey star could have been a blank with abs. He is not. He is observant, a little insecure, good with his hands on ice and careful with Brenna off it. Their text exchanges crackle. One thread where they argue about shootout picks while pretending not to care about each other made me snort on a train.

Hockey texture stays strong. Practices, film, chirps, rivalry crowds. Broadcast booth details add fresh air. Side characters get enough to matter. Summer and Fitzy are not just cameos. Coach Jensen is more than an obstacle.

Now the fair criticism, because the book is not perfect. The middle repeats. Fake date, real date, near miss with dad, internal spiral. Then again. Cutting one cycle would have tightened it. The third act breakup also leans on miscommunication. If you hate secret relationship plots, this will test you.

Content notes matter here. Explicit sex throughout, frequent swearing, drinking at college parties, a controlling parent dynamic that may feel close to home. No assault plot, which sets it apart from some new adult books. The conflict is lying and image pressure, not trauma. Still adult. Do not hand it to a young teen expecting sweet sports romance.

Who will love it. Readers who liked The Chase but wanted a sharper heroine. Anyone who likes enemies to lovers where the enemy part is school rivalry, not cruelty. Jake never degrades Brenna. He challenges her. Readers who like sports media heroines, coach's daughter tension, secret dating with real stakes. Pair it with The Chase first for Summer and Fitzy context, though you can start here. Kennedy recaps enough without drowning you.

A small note on the edition question. Some listings mix up early and reissue data. The copy I am summarizing is the 2019 Bloom Books paperback at 400 pages, ISBN 9781775293989, Briar U two. That matches the author site and Sourcebooks page. If you find a different cover or page count, it is likely another printing. Story is the same. Brenna and Jake, fake for real, hockey and mics.

I closed it liking Brenna more than when I started, which is the point of a good second book. She begins performing toughness and respectability at once, code switching between bad girl and good daughter. She ends choosing one honest version. Call the station, tell dad, keep the guy in daylight. It costs her comfort. It gets her work she can hold without flinching. Jake learns a parallel lesson. Stop playing for the scouts in your head, play the shift in front of you. For a funny college romance, that is a solid place to land. I immediately texted a friend to borrow The Play, because Hunter going celibate sounds like a disaster I need to watch.

FAQ

When was The Risk published?

Bloom Books published it on February 18, 2019. The paperback runs 400 pages with ISBN 9781775293989.

Is The Risk part of a series?

Yes. It is Briar U book two, after The Chase. Each book follows a new couple at Briar, so you can start here.

Is this the same The Risk by S.T. Abby?

Yes. Brenna Jensen shares the name with the S.T. Abby thriller, but Kennedy's book is a college hockey romance about Brenna and Jake. Different authors, different stories.