The Final Score by Lana Ferguson Book Review — A Sunshine Hockey Hero and a Grad Student Who Needs More Than a Spare Room Will Break Your Heart in the Best Way

Why The Final Score by Lana Ferguson Is the Hockey Romance You Will Devour in One Sitting This Summer

What happens when two people who are both quietly falling apart end up sharing the same apartment — and the only way forward is to stop pretending they have everything handled?

The Final Score, published July 7, 2026 by Berkley, is the latest standalone contemporary romance from USA Today bestselling author Lana Ferguson, whose previous books — The Nanny, Under Loch and Key, The Game Changer — have built her one of the most devoted fan bases in the contemporary romance space. Ferguson is known for her "sex-positive nerdy" voice, her ability to write heroes who are big and soft and completely overwhelmed by their feelings, and her gift for hurt/comfort dynamics that feel genuinely earned rather than mechanically deployed.

Jack Baker is a hockey player who just reinjured his arm in what might be a career-ending blow, and who has spent his entire life being the strong, happy, reliable one for everyone around him — particularly for his sister, who needed him most. Abigail Thompson is a grad student who just got kicked out of her apartment with very short notice, who recently severed the cord from a narcissistic father in a very public scandal, and who would rather do almost anything than ask her half-brother for help after everything she has put him through. The last thing either of them wants is to become each other's problem. The spare room is the only option left.

What follows is the friends-to-lovers slow burn with hurt/comfort depth that Ferguson's fans have been waiting for since The Game Changer first introduced Jack and Abby as supporting characters — and it is, as multiple early readers have confirmed, worth every moment of anticipation.

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The Story at the Heart of The Final Score

Jack Baker is, at the novel's opening, a man who has successfully avoided thinking about anything difficult for years by simply being excellent at hockey and cheerful in every situation that did not directly involve hockey. He is big, he is warm, he is reliably funny in the specific way of a golden retriever who genuinely believes everything is going to be fine. He is also — and this is the book's most important character truth — quietly terrified that without the hockey, he does not know who he is.

The reinjury changes everything. Jack had already overcome one serious arm injury to return to the rink. This second injury, potentially career-ending, strips him of the identity he has built around being the team's steady presence — the strong one, the happy one, the one whose job is to be reliable. Alone in his apartment, for the first time not taking care of someone else and not playing hockey, Jack has no idea what to do with himself.

Abigail Thompson arrives at the worst possible moment and turns out to be, against every expectation, exactly what he needed. Abby is a grad student in her final weeks of a programme she has worked extremely hard to complete, recently emerged from a public scandal involving her narcissistic father's uncovering as a fraudster, and newly homeless through no fault of her own. She contacts her half-brother — who is Jack's best friend and teammate — expecting to be turned away. The spare room is offered. Abby moves in, expecting to keep her head down and her distance maintained.

The conflict of character that Lana Ferguson builds between Jack and Abby is the novel's engine. Jack, used to being the support system for everyone else, has no idea how to let someone take care of him in return. Abby, having learned the hard way that charming people with big personalities often have something to hide, has exactly the defensive walls that Jack's Golden Retriever energy cannot simply bounce off. Their daily proximity — the shared kitchen, the unexpected conversations, the moments where one person lets their guard down enough for the other to see something true — is where the novel does its best work.

The hurt/comfort dimension is handled with genuine care. Ferguson does not use Jack's injury or Abby's trauma as plot mechanics — they are the emotional substance of the novel, the things that make both characters' vulnerability real and their eventual connection earned. When they fall into bed, it means something. When they struggle to communicate what they are feeling afterward, it means something. The novel earns its ending through the accumulated weight of two damaged people deciding that trust is worth the risk.

How Lana Ferguson Brings This Story to Life

Lana Ferguson describes herself as "a sex-positive nerd whose works never shy from spice or sass" — and The Final Score delivers on both promises while also delivering something her best work always includes: genuine emotional intelligence underneath the fun.

The dual POV gives the novel its primary pleasure — Jack's voice is warm and slightly bewildered in the way of someone who has spent years being happy and has suddenly discovered that happiness requires more maintenance than he thought. Abby's voice is sharper, more defensive, and capable of the specific self-aware humour of someone who knows they are their own worst enemy and cannot quite stop being it.

Ferguson writes forced proximity with real craft — the apartment setting is used to create escalating intimacy without ever feeling contrived. Every scene between Jack and Abby in the shared space advances both the romance and their individual character development, which is the mark of the genre done properly. The pacing is propulsive — this is emphatically a bingeable read, one that multiple early readers reported consuming in a single sitting.

The Themes That Make The Final Score So Much More Than a Hockey Romance

Identity beyond achievement. Jack's injury forces him to confront the question he has been avoiding: who is he when he is not playing hockey and not taking care of someone? This is the novel's deepest and most resonant question, and Ferguson handles it with the care it deserves — not by having Jack resolve it dramatically, but by showing him gradually discovering that the answer is more interesting than he feared.

Trust after betrayal. Abby's narcissistic father has given her every reason to distrust charming, self-confident men who seem like they have everything figured out. Jack presents as exactly that type. The slow dismantling of this assumption — as Jack's actual vulnerability becomes visible — is the novel's romantic core.

The golden retriever hero done right. The "golden retriever hero" archetype — sunny, enthusiastic, emotionally generous — is one of contemporary romance's most beloved types and one of its most difficult to execute without reducing the hero to a function. Ferguson's Jack is a golden retriever who is also genuinely struggling, which makes him the most interesting version of the archetype: the sunny person who is not always fine. For more romance that gets the male lead right, check out our Big Stick Energy by Sarina Bowen review.

Chosen family and loyalty. The half-sibling relationship between Abby and her brother, and the specific code of loyalty between teammates that governs Jack's reluctance to pursue Abby too openly, give the novel a world of relationships around the central romance that makes both characters feel more fully embedded in a real life.

The Final Score leaves you thinking about who in your own life has been quietly, cheerfully carrying more than you realised.

What The Final Score Gets Absolutely Right

• Jack Baker. He is one of the year's best romance heroes — warm, genuinely funny, emotionally generous, and capable of being genuinely hurt. The moment when his facade slips and Abby sees who he actually is underneath the sunshine exterior is the novel's most affecting passage.

• The hurt/comfort balance. Ferguson handles the dual vulnerability of both characters with equal care — neither Jack's injury nor Abby's trauma is given more weight than the other, which creates a genuine sense of mutual rescue rather than one-directional saving.

• The pacing. The novel is genuinely bingeable — multiple early reviewers reported reading it in a single sitting, and the pacing earns that distinction.

• The forced proximity mechanics. The apartment setting is used with craft — every scene in the shared space advances the relationship and the individual character development simultaneously.

• The Ferguson voice. Spicy, warm, slightly nerdy, and always emotionally intelligent. This is a writer at home in her genre, executing it with complete confidence.

A Few Places Where The Final Score Could Have Gone Further

• The external conflict. The novel's central emotional conflict is internal — Jack's identity crisis, Abby's trust issues — and the external obstacles to their relationship (the brother's-best-friend complication) could have been given slightly more weight to sustain the novel's tension in its middle section.

• The scandal backstory. Abby's father's scandal is an important character detail but is handled primarily in summary — more direct engagement with the emotional cost of that public humiliation would have deepened Abby's defensive walls.

• The supporting cast. The characters from The Game Changer who appear here are warmly drawn but briefly — readers new to Ferguson's universe will find them functional rather than fully realised.

If You Loved The Final Score, Read These Next

The Game Changer by Lana Ferguson is the direct predecessor — the novel in which Jack and Abby first appear as supporting characters — and is essential reading for fans who want the full picture of this universe. Ferguson's signature blend of spice and emotional intelligence is present from the beginning. Buy it on Amazon.

Big Stick Energy by Sarina Bowen is the natural companion read for The Final Score — another hockey romance with a warm, patient hero, a prickly heroine with good reasons for her defences, and a fake-relationship dynamic that gives way to something genuinely real. Explore our full review at thatlovepodcast.com/post/big-stick-energy-by-sarina-bowen-book-review.

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace is a campus hockey romance with comparable warm energy, forced proximity, and a slow burn that rewards patient reading. Buy it on Amazon.

Who Will Love The Final Score the Most

• Lana Ferguson fans. This is Ferguson at her warm, spicy, emotionally intelligent best — auto-buy readers will not be disappointed.

• Golden retriever hero devotees. Jack Baker is the archetype executed with maximum depth and maximum appeal.

• Hurt/comfort romance readers. The novel's dual vulnerability — injured hockey hero, traumatised grad student — is handled with the care and mutual respect that this subgenre requires to work.

• Sports romance fans generally. Even readers who are not specifically hockey fans will find the romance compelling — the sport is backdrop rather than barrier to entry.

Fans of romance fiction might also love our Romance Books section at That Love Podcast for more great reads in this space.

Content Warnings: Career-ending injury, narcissistic parent and familial trauma (referenced), explicit sexual

content, adult content throughout.

How The Final Score Stayed With Me Long After I Finished It

I write characters for a living. I know the specific challenge of making a character who seems fine — who presents as fine, who everyone around them assumes is fine — reveal something genuine and broken without it feeling like a bait-and-switch.

Jack Baker is the best version of this challenge I have read in a hockey romance. The moment where the sunshine exterior cracks and Abby sees something real underneath it is handled with such restraint and such emotional precision that it made me put the book down and think for a moment about everyone in my own life who is quietly, cheerfully carrying more than they show.

The Final Score left me grateful for Lana Ferguson's specific gift. She writes soft heroes with complete conviction, and that conviction is catching.

Final Verdict: Is The Final Score by Lana Ferguson Worth Reading?

The Final Score is Lana Ferguson doing what she does best — and what she does best is one of the most consistent and most pleasurable experiences in contemporary romance. The dual vulnerability of Jack and Abby, the forced proximity dynamics, the golden retriever hero with genuine depth, the pacing that makes the novel disappear in one sitting: all of it works, and all of it works with the specific warmth and intelligence that distinguishes Ferguson's voice from the genre's broader offerings.

This is the sports romance summer needs. The one that makes you emotional about a hockey player and a grad student sharing a kitchen and discovering that they are each other's best solution to the very different problems they have been carrying alone.

Pour yourself something warm. Start the first page. Do not make plans for the rest of the evening.

➡ Buy The Final Score by Lana Ferguson on Amazon

About Lana Ferguson

Lana Ferguson is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance known for her sex-positive voice, her golden retriever heroes, and her specific gift for writing hurt/comfort dynamics with emotional intelligence and genuine depth. She has been writing romance since 2023 with The Nanny, and has built a devoted following through books including Under Loch and Key, The Mating Game, and The Game Changer. The Final Score is her seventh novel. When not writing, she can be found singing show tunes, debating Batman rankings, and rewatching the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings.

Learn more about Lana Ferguson: Official Website | Goodreads Profile | Instagram

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Frequently Asked Questions About The Final Score by Lana Ferguson

1. Is The Final Score part of a series? The Final Score is a standalone novel, though it follows Jack Baker and Abigail Thompson — characters who first appear in Lana Ferguson's The Game Changer. Readers who have not read The Game Changer can begin with The Final Score without any prior context, though fans of the earlier book will have the additional pleasure of following characters they already know.

2. What are the main tropes in The Final Score? The Final Score features forced proximity, friends-to-lovers, hurt/comfort, golden retriever hero, brother's best friend, sports romance, and an adjacent enemies-to-wary-tolerance-to-love arc. The dual vulnerability of both leads — injury and familial trauma — makes the hurt/comfort dynamic central rather than incidental.

3. How steamy is The Final Score? The Final Score is steamy — Lana Ferguson's books consistently deliver on explicit romantic content, and The Final Score is no exception. Adult content is present throughout and significant. Most appropriate for readers 18 and over.

4. Is The Final Score suitable for younger readers? No — The Final Score is adult romance with explicit content, written for readers 18 and over. The themes (career-ending injury, narcissistic parental trauma, adult relationships) are also calibrated for mature readers.

5. Is there an audiobook for The Final Score? Early reader comments specifically mention wanting the audiobook as soon as possible — and given Berkley's consistent audiobook releases for Ferguson's work, an audiobook version accompanying the July 7, 2026 publication is expected. Check major audiobook platforms including Audible for availability.

If you're enjoying this blog, here are some other captivating reads that will sweep you off your feet:

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External Resources

For more book reviews, discussions, and recommendations, check out these fantastic resources: Dear Author – Honest and well-thought-out reviews with sharp commentary. All About Romance – One of the oldest romance review sites with extensive coverage. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – Humorous and insightful reviews with a podcast and community. Goodreads – The world's largest book community for reviews and recommendations. Book Riot – A lively hub for book news, lists, and recommendations across all genres. We hope these resources help you find your next favourite read!