There’s a specific kind of romance that doesn’t ask you to think. It just grabs you by the collar and makes you feel everything at once. Mile High is exactly that kind of book. I didn’t sit here dissecting it, I didn’t pause to admire the “craft.” I just… felt it. And honestly, that’s the whole point.
Let’s get this out of the way: Evan Zanders. Zee (Daddy) Zanders. That man is a problem. Six foot five, the black ink on his warm brown skin, a gold chain (yes, I noticed, yes, it matters), and that very specific brand of confidence that borders on arrogance but somehow circles back to being irresistible. I have a problem with him being fictional. Like please stop. What do you mean 6’5? What do you mean tattoos? But what actually got me wasn’t the surface-level appeal (it clearly did, but…). It’s the way he feels. He’s not just hot, he’s layered. He talks about mental health openly, he co-runs an organisation that helps kids access therapy, and beneath all of that, there’s a man who genuinely believes he’s unlovable.
That part hit.
Because his past is messy in a very real way; an absent mother, an emotionally unavailable father who chose work over presence, and years of internalising the idea that love is conditional. So when Stevie walks into his life, it’s not just romance. It’s disruption. It’s him being forced to confront everything he’s buried. And when things fall apart (because of course they do), what I loved is that he doesn’t just spiral, he acts. He confronts his past, cuts ties where he needs to, and actively chooses to become better. Not just for Stevie, but for himself. That matters.
And then there’s Stevie.
Stevie Shay is probably one of the most human romance heroines I’ve read in a while. Not because she’s perfectly written or “relatable” in a cliché way, but because she’s inconsistent. Contradictory. Real.
She has body image issues. She’s curvy, she’s aware of it, and her confidence fluctuates in a way that feels painfully accurate. Some days she feels good. Some days she doesn’t. And the important part? Nothing has to happen for that shift. There’s no dramatic trigger. It’s just… a day. That quiet, unexplained insecurity. That’s what made her feel real to me.
Her life has always been lived slightly in the shadow of her brother, Ryan Shay, the golden boy athlete. People approach her to get to him. That does something to you. And then there’s her mother, whose comments about her body have clearly left scars that Stevie hasn’t fully confronted until she finally does.
And that moment? When she stands up to her mother, sets boundaries, and walks away, that was one of the strongest emotional beats in the book. Not loud, not dramatic, just… necessary.
Love doesn’t just change you. It changes how you see things, how you react, even how you move through everyday moments.
What I also loved was the sibling dynamic. Stevie and Ryan? Soft. Protective. Real. The kind of relationship where you don’t say everything immediately, but when it matters, you show up. And that realisation that she could have told him sooner and he would have had her back anyway, that hit in a quiet, almost understated way.
And then there’s the banter.
The running “are you following me?” / “I think you’re following me” bit? I ate that up every single time. It’s such a small thing, but it creates this rhythm between them. It’s playful, it’s intimate, and it builds that sense of familiarity before things even get serious.
Overall, Mile High isn’t a book you read to analyse. It’s a book you read to experience. It’s about how past wounds shape present decisions. About how insecurity doesn’t always scream, it sometimes just sits quietly in your chest. About how love doesn’t magically fix you, but it can push you to finally face the things you’ve been avoiding.
And most importantly, it made me feel.
I got teary-eyed. I smiled. I was fully in it.
And for a romance novel, that’s all I really ask for.