Welcome back to another instalment of ‘this post was meant to be something else but then I waited too long and now I have no motivation to finish it’. Today I’m here with four ice hockey romance reviews that I wrote in the middle of last year and have just been waiting in my drafts ever since. I honestly have no memories of any of these books at this point, but here they are!
Meet Your Match (Kings of the Ice #1) by Kandi Steiner
This was the first one I tried. I enjoyed the premise of this one—Maven works in social media and her job becomes to follow Vince around and create content around his life. For the most part, that was interesting. Vince and Maven were adorable together, though I kind of hated Maven when she was on her own—she’s a huge snob. We’re constantly told how much she cares about her community and how she wants to support them, but that just felt fake. This isn’t the type of smut I go for—it was a little too intense for me. All in all, it was fine. I’m undecided if I’ll continue.
Weak Side (Bexley U #1) by S.J Sylvis
I had fun reading this one. Theo is adorable—I feel like he really cares about Claire and I liked the dynamic between them. I feel like Sylvis was trying to do a little too much in this one—Theo and Claire are accidentally assigned as roommates, her boyfriend cheats and constantly mistreats her, and they fake date and there’s a whole side-plot about Claire’s mother. It had a really strong start and I enjoyed most of it, it’s really when we got to the third act that things were a little ridiculous. In saying that, I really did have fun and I’ll continue the series.
Offside (Rules of the Game #1) by Avery Keelan
I’d taken a little break before reading this one, maybe two or so weeks. I really, really enjoyed the start. This is very similar to most other NA hockey romance I’ve read, but I still really liked it. As usual, I loved Chase—the arrogant ice hockey player who actually has a heart of gold is my soft spot. I love when characters call each other by their last names, I don’t know why but I do. It was a tad too long—this is 568 pages and for the most part, that was fine but then towards the end it really started to drag. Looking back at it now, there were definitely some bits that could’ve been cut. I don’t really know what to expect from the next book in the series. I feel like this was one that didn’t really set up the next story, but I could’ve completely missed it too. I’ll continue this one as well.
Heart Trick by Kristen Granata
This one is a little different as it’s a novella, but I wound up in hospital and wanted something quick and light to read. It’s pretty fun—it follows a romance author and a goalie who begin fake dating for PR. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it. I don’t usually reach for romance novellas, I’m just not a fan of super quick love declarations and unfortunately, this felt like that for me. I did enjoy the story and the characters, so had it been a full-length I think I would’ve enjoyed the build-up and developments a lot more. This is supposed to be a series but this one only released in July so none of the others are announced yet. I might continue with it because I really liked who I think the next couple is, but it’s going to depend on the tropes.
And that’s all of them…finally. I feel pretty good about finally getting this out so hopefully I’ll be able to get out some of those other long languishing posts soon too.
Earl Grey Books 