The Setter and the Sender
A Competitive Climbing Romance

About this book:

Owen Vance builds boulders like arguments—precise, brutal, and designed to expose every weakness. As chief setter for the Pan-Continental Invitational, he's prepared to make the world's best climbers suffer on his terms. Then Julian Croft walks into his gym: twenty-four, golden, and arrogant enough to solve Owen's hardest problem cold, in street shoes, while mocking his geometry. The reigning champion climbs like a lightning bolt; Owen sets like a fault line. Neither is ready for the collision.

Forced into an uneasy alliance by federation rules and a technical delegate with zero patience for drama, Owen and Julian circle each other across crash pads and route maps, trading barbs about "pure climbing" versus "content creation." But every late-night stripping session and heated beta debate peels back layers neither expected: the shoulder injury that ended Owen's career, the sponsor leash Julian can't escape, the terrifying clarity they both find only on the wall. The chemistry is undeniable, inconvenient, and exactly the distraction neither can afford with the championship on the line.

As the competition escalates, so does the stakes—Owen's final boulder will either cement his legacy or hand Julian the gold on a silver platter. With cameras rolling, sponsors watching, and their own messy hearts in the balance, two men who speak entirely different dialects of the same obsession must decide if trust is a hold they're willing to commit to. *The Setter and the Sender* is a high-tension rivals-to-lovers romance set in the vertical world, where every move is calculated, every fall is public, and the hardest send might just be letting someone catch you.