Love and Baseball By Jaime Jo Wright with Chloe JoAnne and The Cinderella Plot By Pepper Basham + GIVE AWAY

Welcome to the Blog + Review Tour for Love & Baseball by Jaime Jo Wright (with Chloe Joanne) AND The Cinderella Plot by Pepper Basham, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours! I'm SO excited that these books are out in the world! YA girls need more books like this and I'm so thrilled to share them with you! Be sure to check out the book excerpts below & enter the giveaway!

About the Books

Title: Love and Baseball 
Author: Jaime Jo Wright with Chloe JoAnne 
Publisher: MadLit Publishing 
Release Date: February 10, 2026 
Genre: Young Adult Romantic Comedy

She needed a boyfriend. AI came to her rescue. But then her fake boyfriend showed up at school. 

Brielle has never wanted a boyfriend. She's happy with her book boyfriends--purely fictional, right? Easy to maintain. She's also not a huge fan of sports, except baseball. Not playing it. No. Again, books and cozy afternoons are her thing. But Brielle can get into baseball with the best of them when it comes to watching, repeating stats, and wearing her favorite jerseys. But apparently, that's not enough in life. At least according to her four nosy aunts, who all think she needs a boyfriend, people at school who are convinced Brielle is a closet serial killer because she's happier with her books, and yeah. Valentine’s Day is on the calendar. 

There is a purpose for AI, and Brielle decides the genius thing to do is make a fake boyfriend. Complete with deepfake photos, Brielle creates the perfect boyfriend, and no one needs to know he's entirely fictional. They just need to believe she met him over summer vacation, and he lives somewhere in North Carolina. Only he doesn't. When baseball catcher, Brooks Mason shows up at high school, a lookalike to Brielle's AI boyfriend, her entire world becomes a dog-eared, bent pages book nightmare. 

Brooks is getting sick of all the girls at school wanting to date him. He wants to play ball and hang out. So, yeah. It makes sense to help Brielle out. Fake date? Why not? But once together, dating for show becomes an act that both Brielle and Brooks aren't quite prepared for, and dealing with unexpected attraction, complicated situations, and interfering aunts and bffs?  

It's a grand slam of problems just waiting to happen, plus a game-changing shot at a championship home run at love.  

** CLEAN YA Rom-Com Fiction you can read without skipping a page **

PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon | BookBub

Title: The Cinderella Plot 
Author: Pepper Basham 
Publisher: independently published 
Release Date: March 19, 2026 
Genre: Young Adult Romantic Comedy

Paisley Harper is invisible. 

Not in a superpower way. More like the people-look-right-through-you-in-the-hallway kind of way. 

She’s the girl with the oversized cardigan, random book knowledge, and the uncanny ability to tutor the school’s star quarterback without actually being seen as anything more than helpful. Meanwhile, her aunt and uncle’s beloved small-town bookstore is under threat from a shiny corporate chain, her best friend keeps giving her looks that feel suspiciously loaded, and Homecoming is looming like a glittery reminder that senior year is running out…and she’s never been kissed. 

Enter The Cinderella Plot—a wildly popular self-help book promising total transformation in five easy steps. New hair. New confidence. New life. Maybe even… a date. 

With nothing to lose (except her dignity), Paisley decides to follow the plan. Because if fairy tales have taught her anything, it’s that invisible girls don’t get happy endings unless they change something first. 

But as Paisley starts stepping into the spotlight, she has to ask herself an important question: 

What if being seen comes at the cost of being herself? 

Full of heart, humor, bookish charm, and small-town magic, The Cinderella Plot is a romcom about friendship, first love, faith, and discovering that sometimes the greatest transformation isn’t becoming someone new—it’s realizing you were worthy all along.  

** CLEAN YA Rom-Com Fiction you can read without skipping a page **

PURCHASE LINKS: Goodreads | Amazon

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Love and Baseball Book Excerpt

“WHAT?” Lia’s voice stripped all hearing from my ears. It was so high-pitched and so emphatic that I winced.

Then I joined in. “I KNOW!” 

“WHAT THE WHAT?” She half-laughed, half-squealed.

“I KNOOOW!” I replied.

Then we just stared at each other through our phones until I collapsed on my bed, letting my phone fall next to me. But I could still hear Lia, and that was all that mattered.

The events of today were beyond extraordinary, and not necessarily in a good way extraordinary. They just weren’t ordinary. 

“So you are dating Brooks, then?” Lia clarified.

“I guess!” I laughed. I wanted to cry. I was mortified. I was horrified. I was terrified. I was pretty much any word that ended with ‘fied and that didn’t even seem enough. “Fake. It’s all fake,” I added.

The Cinderella Plot Book Excerpt

I love this part of the day. Before school, before drama, and, most recently, before I have to think about Logan or Homecoming or being invisible. Just me and Chris and the trail and the comfortable rhythm of our footsteps.

“I need your opinion on something very important,” Chris says after we’ve been running for about five minutes.

“More important than whether Han shot first?”

“Obviously he shot first. This is about Disney princes.”

I laugh, nearly stumbling. “Oh no. Not this again.”

“Yes, this again. It’s important.” He’s completely serious now in that way that makes his ridiculous debates even funnier. “Which Disney prince is the most useless?”

“Chris—”

“I’m going with Prince Florian. From Snow White.”

“The one who kisses unconscious girls?”

“Exactly!” He’s getting animated now, hands gesturing as he runs. “She’s literally in a coma and he’s just like, ‘This seems like a good time for romance.’”

I’m giggling now, my breath coming harder from the combination of running and laughing. “Okay, fair. That’s pretty bad.”

“Right? But Molly says I’m wrong. She says it’s Prince Charming from Cinderella because he can’t remember what the girl he danced with all night looks like.”

“She has a point.”

“She does not have a point.” Chris is fully committed to this argument now, running backward so he can face me while he talks. Show-off. “Okay, yes, the shoe thing is weird. But at least he’s trying. He’s going door to door with that shoe. He’s committed to finding her.”

“He literally can’t recognize her face without the dress,” I counter, falling into our familiar rhythm. “What kind of guy spends an entire evening with someone and then can’t pick her out of a lineup the next day?”

“It was a masquerade situation! There was magic involved! The lighting was bad!”

“It was a ballroom.” I’m laughing so hard now I have to slow down a little. “There were chandeliers everywhere. And she didn’t even wear a mask—that’s a common misconception.”

“Okay, fine, but—” He stops mid-sentence, still running backward, and points at me.

“Wait. Are you defending Florian, the unconscious-girl-kisser?”

“No! I’m just saying Charming is also pretty useless.”

“They’re all useless. That’s my point.” Chris grins, and there’s something in his expression that catches my attention.

An intensity or something.

What was that? I think Uncle Jasper’s weirdness is rubbing off on me.

“These guys fall in love with a voice, or a dress, or a magical moment,” he continues. “And then they can’t recognize the actual person when she’s standing right in front of them without all the sparkles.”

He’s looking at me when he says it. And I’m looking back, trying to figure out if there’s something more in his words than just a Disney prince debate.

“So what’s the moral of the story, Professor Benson?” I can’t seem to pull my eyes away from his. What’s that about?

His expression shifts. More serious. “The moral is that if someone can’t recognize you without the costume, they don’t deserve you with it.”

We’re still running, but everything feels slower somehow. Like the world has narrowed down to just us and this moment and the morning light filtering through the trees like our own personal spotlight.

Chris is still running backward, still watching me with those blue eyes that have flecks of gold when the light hits them right, and I’m not sure why my heart is suddenly pounding harder than the running can account for.

About the Authors

Jaime Jo Wright is a multi-award-winning author of gothic historical mystery novels that weave suspense through dual timelines. Her debut novel, The House on Foster Hill (2017), won both the prestigious Christy Award and the Daphne du Maurier Award, establishing her as a compelling voice in inspirational fiction. An ECPA and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author, Wright specializes in chilling mysteries stained with history's secrets, drawing readers into haunting tales set primarily in turn-of-the-century Wisconsin. Her work has earned praise from Publishers Weekly for skillfully wrapping intricate mysteries around dual timelines with enough surprises to captivate lovers of gothic fiction. When she isn’t writing mysteries, she co-authors YA RomCom with her teenage daughter, Chloe JoAnne, with a passion to provide sweet and witty romance for teenagers with no apologies needed. Residing in Wisconsin's rural woodlands with her husband and their two children, Wright is a self-proclaimed coffee enthusiast and lover of all of her rescued felines.

Connect with Jaime Jo by visiting jaimewrightbooks.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email updates.

Pepper Basham is an award-winning author who writes romance “peppered” with grace and humor. Writing both historical and contemporary novels, she loves to incorporate her native Appalachian culture and/or her unabashed adoration of the UK into her stories. She currently resides in the lovely mountains of southwestern VA, where she is the wife, mom to five great kids, a speech-language pathologist, and a lover of chocolate, jazz, hats, and Jesus.

Connect with Pepper by visiting pepperdbasham.com to follow her on social media and subscribe to email updates.

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Tour Giveaway

(1) winner will receive a prize pack of Brielle's Faves (an signed copy of Love & Baseball, a copy of Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, a Milwaukee Brewers lanyard, and a Brewers Christian Yelich baseball card) and Paisley's Faves (a signed copy of The Cinderella Plot, a Cinderella carriage jewelry holder, and a beautiful copy of Emma by Jane Austen)!

Full tour schedule linked below. The giveaway begins at midnight March 2, 2026 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 9, 2026. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

Giveaway is subject to JustRead Publicity Tours Giveaway Policies.

Enter Giveaway

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