CBR16 Book 11: "Canadian Boyfriend" by Jenny Holiday

Page count: 384 pages

Audio book length: 10 hrs 52 mins

Rating: 4 stars

This was an audio ARC from Netgalley. My opinions are my own.

CBR16 Sweet Books: Exciting (I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and was VERY excited to get an ARC shortly before the release date. 

Nowhere Bingo: A book with multiple POVs

When Aurora "Rory" Evans was a lonely teenager, she ran into a handsome Canadian hockey player while she was selling coffee at the Mall of America. She took his name and pretended to have an actual Canadian boyfriend, making her loneliness and ostracism seem more bearable, because even if she had been invited to things, she wouldn't have been able to come, since she was probably visiting her boyfriend, in Canada. And obviously, he couldn't come to school dances or her ballet recitals, living in Canada and all. To keep up the ruse, she also wrote her fictional boyfriend long letters, basically making them a sort of journal for some difficult years in her life.

Now an adult, having given up on ballet as it was making her sick, Aurora works as a dance teacher in a small town. She still struggles with her years of disordered eating, and occasionally gets panic attacks, but she's doing a lot better and enjoys teaching children the joys of dance. To her great surprise, the tragically widowed Mike Martin, whose daughter comes back to dance classes after some time away (what with the grief and the dead mum and soforth), is none other than the handsome young man she took as inspiration for her fake boyfriend. To her credit, it takes her a while to confirm to herself that the Mike she met as a teenager and this Mike are the same person, but even when she does, she doesn't tell him the truth about her teenage coping mechanism. 

Mike loved his wife and is still dealing with a lot of emotions after her sudden death in a car accident. Olivia, Rory's dance student, is his step-daughter and while he's the only father she's ever known, he's had to fight his parents-in-law for custody, which hasn't exactly made the grieving process easier. It's clear that Olivia adores her father, but she's also a tween who lost her mother and is prone to tantrums and sudden outbursts. Dance classes with "Miss Rory" are one of her favourite things. Mike likes that Aurora doesn't fawn over him (unlike many of the dance mums) and he sees the easy rapport she has with Olivia, and when he discovers that Aurora is working multiple jobs to make ends meet, offers to hire her to be Olivia's sort-of nanny while he's off resuming his hockey career. 

So the romance here takes a while to develop. Aurora is keeping the secret that she basically used Mike as a template for a fantasy boyfriend for a long time as a teenager, a truth that becomes more difficult to tell the longer she knows him and the closer they become. Mike is also Aurora's employer (she refuses to take a paycheck, but lives in his basement, has access to a car whenever she needs it, and gets health insurance) for a lot of the book, which certainly complicates the situation between them somewhat. Mike also feels like he can't date again until his daughter is older, possibly even until after she's old enough to move out. He doesn't feel like he can introduce a new woman into her life, in case they break up and she would have to deal with losing another person. When they do finally decide to become more than friends, they do address the employer/employee complication, so it's very much not a case of anyone being exploited or taken advantage of. 

There's so much to like in this book. The close friendship between Aurora and her best friend (who owns the dance studio where she works). Mike has been in therapy since his wife died, and once Aurora gets health insurance, she can also afford to see a therapist. She has a long list of reasons as to why she needs to, beginning with the relationship with her very controlling mother, who still makes her feel guilty for giving up a career as a dancer, because of all the time and money her mother put into "supporting" her daughter. There's the disordered eating, which still creates problems for her occasionally, although I liked how she tried to get more comfortable with allowing herself sugary things and her anxiety. And after a while, it's actually her complicated feelings about her relationship with Mike. 

By the way, notice how I keep calling the male protagonist simply Mike in my review? My major complaint about this book, the main reason I cannot give it five stars, even though I really enjoyed it and it did so many things well, is that consistently, throughout the entire book, up to and including the epilogue, Aurora calls Mike by his full name. He is Mike Martin EVERY single time she refers to him. I get it when they are still just acquaintances, and he's the father of one of the girls she teaches. But once she moves into his house to take care of his daughter? Once they actually start engaging in spicy recreational activities? Why? Who does that? 

I do not call or think of my husband as Mark Patterson, he's just Mark. Possible exception if I have to fill out official paperwork or something, then I guess I'd use his full name. Why, Aurora? What is your deal? What is up with that? This strange quirk started bothering me about halfway through the book when I really started noticing it, and by the end of the book, I was annoyed enough that it made me want to scream. So no five stars for you, book. 

It's been a while since I listened to an audio book with two narrators, but to me, this had an unusual audio format. I'm used to romance novels that have alternating POVs between the protagonists, and if the audiobook has two different narrators, they read the entire chapter from "their" character's POV. That is not the case here. Emily Ellet narrates the chapters where Aurora is the POV character and Joshua Jackson narrates Mike's. In all the chapters, Ellet does all the female voices and Jackson does all the male voices. So it becomes a sort of hybrid between a standard audio book and an audio drama. I really liked it. I've now come across another romance audio that did the same thing. If this is a new trend in dual-POV books in audio, whether romance or not, I'm a big fan. It makes the whole thing a lot more entertaining. 

Both narrators for this are really good and make the story more engaging. Normally, I only listen to audiobooks when I'm going to and from work, or am out doing errands, or if I'm doing chores. Now, I kept finding excuses to listen more. I know there was a lot of excitement on social media because THE  Joshua Jackson (of Dawson's Creek and Fringe fame) was doing the male part. Is this actually his first time doing audiobooks? If so, he did a good job. I enjoyed the audiobook enough that I used one of my precious Audible credits on it once I finished listening. So even if this was an ARC originally, Ms. Holiday got another sale.

Niggles about Aurora's weird name quirk aside, this was really good and I liked how Mike's character actually got the space and time to work through his many issues because of his wife's death. Neither Aurora nor Mike are magically healed by the love of another, and keep going to therapy because even once they work through the final act complications, both of them need mental health support. In so many books, one or both of the main characters should have intense and comprehensive therapy to deal with their MANY issues - that is not the case here.

I think the next book in the series is about Gretchen, Aurora's best friend. I can't wait. Hopefully, she'll not refer to her romantic partner with first and surname constantly. 

Judging a book by its cover: By now, I can pretty much recognise a Leni Kaufmann-illustrated cover at a glance. I always love her covers, and this one is particularly cute. Not entirely sure why the guy (clearly Mike) looks like the twin of Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation, but the pink and the mint-green and Aurora's lovely ballet slippers - the playful way she sits and glances over at Mike. It works for me on every level. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR14 Book 43: "Make It Sweet" by Kristen Callihan

Page count: 369 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Dough (the hero is a retired hockey player who bakes and cooks the most amazing food - there is some serious food porn in this book).

Lucian "Luc" Osmond was a star hockey player with brilliant career prospects, tons of friends and teammates, not to mention a beautiful fiancee. Then one especially hard tackle has the doctors proclaim that if he continues to play, he's likely to end up brain damaged or dead. So he has to give up the sport that has dominated his life since he was a teenager, the only thing he really considers himself any good at, and has withdrawn to stay on his grandmother's big California estate, Rosemont. Here he isolates himself completely from his past life, interacting only with his grandmother or her self-appointed stylist (a flamboyant young man who's basically like a brother to Luc). 

Emma Maron was really enjoying her career, starring as a powerful warrior, sorceress, and princess on wildly popular fantasy show Dark Castle (think Game of Thrones). She considered many of the cast and crew her friends, and loved the opportunities the show gave her. Then, during the read-through of the show's fourth season finale, Emma (and the rest of the cast and crew) discover that Princess Anya will be killed off, beheaded by her enemies. Suddenly without a job, and completely unable to tell anyone in the industry until after the episode has aired, Emma is bereft. Not helping matters is going home to find her football player boyfriend boinking a waitress in their living room. Jobless and suddenly single, Emma desperately needs an escape and some rest and relaxation. Her grandmother's best friend just so happens to have a big, almost-empty estate in California which she enthusiastically invites Emma to come to visit, for as long as she wants. You see where this is going. 

When Lucian goes to pick Emma up at the airport, she initially mistakes him for a fan asking for an autograph. So their first meeting is off to a brilliant start. Nevertheless, Emma can't get over how handsome her appointed driver is, and Lucian, like millions of fans worldwide, has fancied Emma's onscreen persona for years. While their first meeting is a bit awkward, he realises very quickly that she's a very kind, considerate, and down-to-earth woman, with no annoying diva tendencies. The role she played might have been appealing, but the real woman is far more attractive because she's real. 

While Lucien still played hockey, he used to like cooking and baking as an occasional hobby to blow off steam and relax. Now that he's been holed up on his grandmother's estate for months, he's taken his culinary skills to another level and pours all of himself into cooking pretty much all the meals for everyone staying there. He starts putting special care into everything he makes for Emma, wanting to impress her with his cakes and pastries without her ever knowing that it's him, the man she considers the rather surly handyman onsite, who is also the estate's very talented chef. Due to another early misunderstanding, Emma thinks it's his grandmother who cooks, and she's amused enough to let her guest believe the lie.

Lucien's grandmother is a very kind and generous woman, but she clearly has ulterior motives for inviting the famous actress to convalesce in one of her guest houses. Along with her trusty assistant/stylist, she does whatever she can to throw Lucian and Emma together, matchmaking as best she can. However, while there is a lot of chemistry and attraction between Luc and Emma, they take ages to actually act on it, and even when they do, Lucian is very caught up in his self-pity, self-loathing, and belief that because he can no longer play hockey, and he is somehow less of a man, and certainly not someone anyone would ever want to be with long-term. Emma too is in a difficult place, having been cheated on and not knowing where her career is going to go now. Pretty much every time they make any progress in the relationship, they shortly after have to take two steps back because of something Luc does or feels about how hockey is the only thing he's ever been good at and his life might as well end now because he might die if he goes back on the ice.

The bit that really hammers home that Luc is a bit too caught up in his own drama and unwilling to ever consider any other alternative life path is when he and Emma go to a wedding, for one of her cast mates on Dark Castle. There's some sort of disaster involving the wedding cake, so Luc steps in and bakes a ton of delectable treats with very little preparation. The bride, a chef who is looking for a pastry chef straight up offers him a job working for her and he still refuses to even consider it. I guess it's a good thing for Emma's sake that he's really hot and the smexy times are great. 

It's a romance, so we all know they're going to get to their HEA eventually. Thankfully, Emma eventually has enough of Luc's 'woe is me, I am hockey, without hockey, I am nothing' schtick and leaves him to come to his senses, but it takes him far too long to realise what a good thing he now has and what his life could be without risking his brain and/or life on the regular. Can you tell I really don't care about sports one jot? Give me a man who can cook and bake over an athlete any day.

Not even slightly one of Callihan's best romances, although it does have a lot of fun supporting characters and a lot of good banter. It was also a quick read and allowed me to cross yet another book off my ever-growing TBR list. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I'm not a super fan of the cover, it's refreshing to see a romance published in the last few years that doesn't have the ever-present cartoony cover illustration. I actually really like just seeing glimpses of the characters in the letters of the title. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 44 : "Björnstad (Beartown)" by Fredrik Backman

Page count: 470 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Sports Ball (could easily also be used as Rec'd, since a lot of Cannonballers have read and reviewed it favourably)

Official book description:

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

See, if even if the actual blurb hadn't mentioned a violent act against a young girl (I'm sure you can all imagine what kind of an act this is, taking place at a party full of drunken teenage athletes and the girls that admire them), this book, when not making it super clear just how essential ice hockey as a sport and especially the junior team full of promising seventeen-year-olds are to the survival of the rather remote Björnstad (literally translated as Beartown), is foreshadowing something terrible happening from very early on. 

The book is slow to start, and at first I really wasn't sure why I needed to "get to know" quite so many different characters, as the point of view in this book changes constantly between both major and more minor characters. We see the world through the eyes of several of the hot shot hockey players, through the eyes of the ex-pro hockey coach who doesn't want to fire his aging mentor despite the wishes of the team sponsors; his successful lawyer wife, who as a working mother with her own thriving career really doesn't fit well with the other wives and mothers of the town; their cheerful musician daughter; her loyal best friend (with a troubled home life); the junior coach who's looking at a pretty guaranteed promotion once the junior team most likely wins the championship, but also through the eyes of one of the former youth athletes, now a washed-up alcoholic; the agoraphobic owner of the local sports pub and others. 

Nevertheless, I kept reading, and Backman certainly made me aware of all aspects of the little community and the hopes that all of these disparate people had pinned to a few sports games. Two things are made clear very early - if the junior hockey team doesn't win the championship, any chance at revitilising the town's failing economy is completely gone, and something very bad is going to happen to the head coach's daughter at some point. As we get closer to the victory party where the terrible deed is going to take place, I was grimly determined to keep reading until I got past the bad part, just so I could get it out of the way. Imagine my surprise when I looked up, noticed that more than three hours had passed and I suddenly had only about a third of the book left. That's the advantage of the rapidly changing points of view, you keep seeing events from more than one angle and after having "inhabited" all of these different people for the first third you really feel involved in all of their hopes and dreams and their humanity and you suspect you know exactly how bad the fallout's going to be.

In reviews, I've frequently seen Backman referred to as a funny writer. This book is a pretty solid slice of social realism, but I can see why he's such a popular author, with so many fans worldwide. I don't really care about sports at all, certainly not ice hockey. I only vaguely knew the rules before reading this book, yet understood the plays described perfectly.  I personally also suck at all kinds of physical exercise - I will never reach the level of skill these young athletes, even the reserve players, yet I understood their ambition and drive. The three very different coaches, the weary school teacher, the pub owner - they felt like people I might meet walking down the street. 

Backman writes about doing a lot of research and talking to a lot of sexual assault survivors, and I think he writes about the unforgivable acts at the party and its terrible aftermath very sensitively and well. While you might imagine this book being very "male-centric", the women of Backman's book are also all distinctive and never feel like tired stereotypes. One of the hockey players lost his father at a young age, and has as a result been raised by his widowed mum and three older sisters, all very formidable. There is the coach's wife, his daughter, her best friend, not to mention several other women, both likable and rather pitiful in these pages, and again, they all felt like Backman was writing about people who actually exist.

I had not imagined a book about sexual assault and small town hockey would engross me this much. Sadly, I had to return the second book to the library before I had a chance to read it, and am still waiting for a new chance to pick it up. I know Backman has confirmed that there will be a third book to finish the series, so now I may wait until that's out and binge the final two parts in one go. 

Judging a book by its cover: I've seen a number of different covers for this book, but this is the one that was on the library copy I had. The two scenes shown on the cover might not look very exciting, but they're both taken directly from the novel and while I wasn't too impressed with it at first, I now really like the cover design. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Book 4: "Pipe Dreams" by Sarina Bowen

Page count: 336 pages
Audio book length: 9 hrs 34 mins
Rating: 2 stars

Lauren Williams used to love hockey, but after Brooklyn Bruisers goalie Mike Beacon suddenly dumped her without warning, she stays far away from the game, and is very grateful that her boss, Nate Kattenberger, has her running his office in Manhattan, so she can focus on moving on and building a life for herself on her own. She's about to graduate from college, with a lot of bright career prospects in her future and she's planning on having a baby, by herself. She's none too happy when Nate's former assistant, Becca, who now helps manage the team gets a concussion, so Lauren has to help cover for her and brings her up close to the hockey team on a daily basis again.

Mike Beacon got married to his high school sweetheart after he knocked her up, and while he never regretted the daughter he got, his wife never really wanted to be married to a top athlete, and their marriage suffered. When they finally separated, he made his move on Lauren, who he'd dreamed about for years, but kept things professional with until it was clear his marriage was a thing of the past. Mike and Lauren spent a deliriously happy year together, but just as Mike's divorce was about to come through, he discovered that his soon to be ex-wife had terminal cancer, and the situation was unbearable for his little girl. Making the difficult choice to move back in with his wife and daughter, he didn't really tell Lauren the severity of the situation (he kept claiming to have a good reason for this - I never really got what the heck he was thinking).

Now, two years later, Mike is raising a thirteen-year-old and regretting screwing things up with Lauren. Since she appears to still be single, he decides to try to win her back, but he has his work cut out for him, both with Lauren, and his daughter, who because of malicious gossip from other players' wives believes Lauren to be some evil home wrecker.

I hadn't read any Sarina Bowen for a long time when I picked up Brooklynaire, which turned out to be a fun, if a bit flawed, read. Since I still had about a week left on my Audible romance deal, I decided to check out the previous book in the series, with a plot that clearly runs at least partially concurrently with the sequel. I was surprised at how much overlap there actually was, and if I'd read these in order, I probably would have rated Brooklynaire lower, since there were whole scenes that were more or less repeated entirely. I read them in the right order, though, as there is no way I would have wanted to pick up the sequel if I'd read this one first.

This was, to be honest, quite a slog. While I liked Lauren as a supporting character in Brooklynaire and she was a perfectly agreeable romance heroine in her own right, I didn't really care for Mike at all, nor his plot moppet adolescent with her temper tantrums and jealousy fits, even though her male nanny/live in violin teacher was pretty cool. His reasons for going back to his wife were noble enough, but the way he handled things with Lauren was abysmal, and he certainly didn't deserve to have her back in any way. I didn't care for the way he pretty much nagged his way back into her good graces, and her heart. If you see nothing romantic or attractive about the book's hero, the romance isn't really going to work. That was the case here.

MINOR SPOILER! Also, I never thought that I'd find something worse than the still frequently occurring "pregnancy epilogue". This book, however, ends with an actual, extended description of childbirth, which is no one's idea of a good time. That was pretty much the final nail in the coffin for me, and I think Sarina Bowen is on extended hiatus for me again.

Judging a book by its cover: You can tell that it's a book about hockey because the burly, muscular dude on the cover is holding a hockey stick. Of course, the hero of this book is a goalie, so should really be wearing a lot more padding. In general, this guy is wearing way too little for a hockey player, even in a friendly team practise, I would think going on the ice wearing nothing but some dark trousers would be inviting all sorts of injuries. But how could we tell it was a romance if there wasn't man titty on the cover?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 1: "Brooklynaire" by Sarina Bowen

Page count: 452 pages
Audio book length: 9 hrs 39 mins
Rating: 3.5 stars

Rebecca "Becca" Rowley has worked for tech billionaire Nate Kattenberger for more than seven years. She managed his office while he and a few friends were still an optimistic start up. For the last few years, she's gone from being his personal assistant to managing the hockey team he bought, the Brooklyn Bruisers. Foolishly walking onto the ice to personally deliver a message, Rebecca falls and gets a concussion. Several weeks later, she's still not well and fretting terribly about her inability to get back to work. Not helping her recovery, which requires that she rest a lot and stay in a peaceful environment, is the fact that Rebecca shares an apartment with her younger sister, her infant nephew and the baby's father. Not exactly restful surroundings.

As the weeks progress and Becca doesn't recover, Nate not only insists she see a specialist, but he whisks her away to his six-bedroom mansion, so she can relax properly and be taken care of by his household staff (his housekeeper is amazing!). Becca worries that she's taking advantage of their long friendship, being the only person in Nate's organisation who's still unaware of his true feelings for her. Nate's massive crush on Becca has apparently been obvious not just to his current personal assistant, Lauren, but most of the hockey team, as well as several of their mutual friends. When she's injured and has a difficult recovery, his protective feelings towards her pretty much drive him crazy.

I'm not spoiling anything when I say that Becca and Nate eventually hook up and share a very steamy night together. However, while Becca strictly speaking works for the hockey team, Nate, as the owner of the team is still her boss, so it's a difficult situation, and the power dynamics are certainly unfortunate. Becca has a bunch of self esteem issues and can't really believe that someone as rich, brilliant, handsome and important as Nate would really want someone like her. She also doesn't want to be accused of trying to further her career by sleeping with her boss. Nate, on the other hand, is only too aware of how inappropriate sleeping with your former executive assistant is. He moved Becca to help manage the Brooklyn Bruisers specifically so he wouldn't have to share an office with her daily and obviously lust after his employee.

I saw this book on a number of "Best of 2018" romance lists at the end of last year. I also had a chance to try out the Audible Romance add-on for free for a month, and this was one of the books offered. While I don't see myself actually wanting to pay money monthly for the extra Audible subscription (with very few exceptions, pretty much all the books of the romance authors I really like, and would have wanted included in such a deal, aren't actually available, and have to be purchased separately), it was a fun enough book. There were a lot of good things about it. The "friends to lovers" trope was executed well enough. I liked a lot of the supporting cast, especially Nate's housekeeper. His robo butler/alternative to Alexa/Siri was also pretty cool. There was good banter and nice chemistry between the protagonists.

However, there were also things that could have been a lot better. The book occasionally flashes back to seven years ago, showing us the start of the friendship between Nate and Becca. When Rebecca is hired by Nate, as the office manager of his little start-up, his business partner, who deals with the finances asks if Becca will be given stock options as part of her salary. The answer is "not for clerical staff". Yet it becomes clear from the book's present day sections that Becca became pretty integral for the smooth day to day running of the company that eventually went huge and netted Nate his eventual billions. That she became a lot more than just his "assistant". So it seems both strange and incredibly unfair that Becca was never given even a few shares in his hugely successful venture, and as a result, was cheated out of a very comfortable life.

At the start of the book, Becca is fretting about a possible rent increase on her apartment (she doesn't get one because SPOILER - of course the building she lives in is owned by one of Nate's many holding companies) and she certainly worries about her medical expenses when seeing specialists and having very necessary physical therapy isn't covered by her insurance. This would be needless worries if she owned just a few shares in Nate's tech empire. I frankly wasn't super happy with the rather heavy-handed way Nate dealt with her medical bills either. While he was acting from a place of worry and wanting to take care of Becca, he pretty much just went over her head and put her in an embarrassing position.

I haven't read any Sarina Bowen in a long time. This was a fun enough book, but if it's a top ten romance of 2018, it's yet another sign that 2018 just wasn't a very good year for romance, historical or contemporary. Not sure if the book made me want to read more of the Brooklyn Bruisers series or not. There is one more book in the series available in the Audible romance package, about Nate's other assistant, Lauren, which I may check out before my free month runs out - but I haven't quite decided yet.

Judging a book by its cover: Considering the rest of the covers in this series features the rather laughable concept of very brawny shirtless dudes (with parts of their heads cropped off, cause you don't want to see their actual faces) with some random hockey gear visible, this one is even more hilarious. Since Nate is a geeky tech billionaire and merely the owner of the hockey team, they can't really go with sports paraphernalia, but we can't get away from our shirtless dude. So instead we get a hipster dude doing his best blue steel (looking half asleep behind his glasses) having inexplicably lost his shirt (but not his suit jacket or tie) somewhere along the way. Oh, and the Brooklyn Bridge in the background, just in case you were unsure of where the book is set. Stay classy, romance covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 51: "Him" by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

Page count: 274 pages
Rating: 4.5 pages

Summary from Goodreads:

They don't play for the same team? Or do they?

Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died. 

Ryan Wesley's biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he'll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions - can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend...and a big one to learn about himself. 

Warning: contains sexual situations, skinnydipping, shenanigans in an SUV and proof that coming out to your family on social media is a dicey proposition. 

While Wes is now sort of "don't ask, don't tell" out to his hockey teammates and coaches at college, he was only really coming to terms with his sexuality when he was eighteen and crushing hard on his best friend at hockey camp. Absolutely desperate for an excuse to touch him, he made a drunken bet and subsequently freaked out after he and his best friend fooled around one very memorable time. Feeling horribly guilty, Wes cut off all contact with his friend and they haven't spoken for four years. Now their teams are likely to face off in the national championships, and Wes feels he should probably make some sort of gesture of reconciliation.

Raised in a large and loving family in California, Jamie really isn't too bothered about the drunken experimentation at hockey camp, but he's hurt and upset that Wes pretty much burned all the bridges of their friendship and never spoke to him after that one night. He's surprised to discover that Wes has resurrected their old tradition of sending each other gag gifts, and suddenly seems willing to patch up their broken friendship as well. He's even more surprised when Wes shows up at camp to coach for the summer, even though he should be getting ready for his big break in Toronto.

Having seen and spoken to Jamie again, Wes can't get him out of his mind, and wants to spend as much time with him as possible, even if he can never admit his true feelings. He's shocked to realise that Jamie wasn't horribly traumatised by their one drunken night together and even more surprised to realise that he may even be willing to repeat the experience. After Jamie does some soul-searching and concludes that he very much seems to be attracted to either gender, the two friends can barely keep off each other, hooking up every chance they get.

While Wes has been more or less openly out in college, he doesn't want to attract press attention during the first year of his new and promising hockey career. He's planning on staying strictly celibate and a relationship is the last thing he's looking for. Jamie's due in Detroit at the end of the summer, but doesn't even know if he wants a career in hockey. He only ever started playing to stand out from the other men in the family who were all into football and now that he's done with college, he's not sure his head is really in the game, if it doesn't involve coaching. There doesn't seem to be much of a future for the two of them, even though they keep growing closer as the weeks pass by.

I have yet to read anything else by Elle Kennedy, although I've heard good things about her Off-Campus series. I very much enjoyed all of the books in Sarina Bowen's The Ivy Years, though, including her M/M romance The Understatement of the Year. That book involved a lot more angst, though, with Graham's initial denial and reluctance to accept his feelings and sexual identity being both frustrating and a bit exhausting.

What I loved about this book is that there isn't really a lot of wrestling with insecurities. Jamie has grown up in California, perfectly comfortable with homosexuality and doesn't feel violated or traumatised by the drunken night he and Wes spent together at eighteen. By the time Jamie and Wes meet again, Wes has accepted that he's gay and is out to his parents (who chose to mainly ignore his confession) and most of his friends. He tells the head coach at the hockey camp and Jamie shortly after arriving there and is comfortable in himself, but has never had a steady boyfriend, as he still secretly pines for the one man he can't have, Jamie.

After an evening out, seeing Wes flirting with someone else, Jamie gets uncharacteristically jealous and initiates a passionate kiss. Wes assumes he's just drunk and confused, and tries to brush him off, not wanting him to do something he'll regret. Jamie's really rather persistent though, and quite skillfully seduces his infatuated bestie. Despite Wes' fears, Jamie seems to have no regrets come morning. Some alone time with his computer and various kinds of porn makes him conclude he's most likely bi and he's more than happy to keep hooking up with Wes for as long as they're at camp.

As is par the course for any romance, the course of true love never does run entirely smooth. Where would be the fun in that? As ecstatic as Wes is about spending quality hockey time with his best friend by day and passionately hooking up by night, he's pretty sure that once Jamie goes off to Detroit, he'll find himself some nice girl to settle down with, and there's that whole going temporarily back in the closet for himself, so as to not attract undue attention during his first year as a pro.

While the book starts out a bit slow, the story really picks up once the story moves to the hockey camp where Jamie and Wes first met many years ago and Jamie now coaches every summer. Both protagonists are funny and likable in their separate ways and the supporting cast around them felt nicely developed too. The love scenes are pretty much all scorching, from their very first kiss (in the rain, because of course it is). I haven't read a lot of M/M romance, but I have never had a problem in seeing the appeal. One hot dude is good, two hot dudes, being hot for each other - so much better.

I'm now a bit torn about getting the sequel, Us, that came out earlier this year. On the one hand, I'd get more Jamie and Wes and seeing how their life together is panning out (plus probably a lot more hot sex). On the other hand, I'm worried there's going to be a lot more complications introduced before they get their eventual HEA after all, and I'm not sure I want that. As long as I have only read this one, they're perfectly gooey and happy together. I really do need to get round to reading the Off-Campus books now, though.

Judging a book by its cover: Some very ripped abs sadly obscured by the unnecessarily large title (would it have hurt the cover designers to let me have a bit more eight-pack to ogle?). You're clearly meant to objectify the very fit model too, otherwise there is no excuse for the t-shirt he's wearing being half pulled off like that. He doesn't even have a face. See, it's totally ok to leer at this handsome athlete - he's completely anonymous. Just so you know what manner of sportsball is being played in the book, the cover designers have also kindly included a hockey stick as well. Because readers are really seeking out these books because of the sports contents, that's right.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 9: "The Understatement of the Year" by Sarina Bowen

Page count: 281 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Michael Graham and John Rikker were best friends growing up, spending all their time together, playing hockey either on the ice or on a gaming console in Graham's den. Until the summer when it was quite clear that their friendship was turning into something else and they couldn't keep their hands off each other anymore. Taking every chance they got to be together in secret, their developing relationship came to a violent end when they were caught by a gang of homophobic bullies. Graham managed to run away, Rikker didn't, and ended up in hospital. Then he was shipped off to live with his grandmother and Graham did his best to forget him and the feelings he had, retreating so far into the closet you'd think he'd end up in Narnia.

Five years later, Graham gets a nasty shock when Rikker walks into the locker room after a hockey game, having transferred colleges because he was outed at his previous school and deemed undesirable on the team. Flooded with fear and guilt, Graham knows that Rikker has the power to destroy him with a word. He's terrified that Rikker will admit that they not only knew each other in high school, but used to hook up. It's not the comments, snide remarks and outright slurs Rikker has to face makes it look all that appealing to be openly gay on a college hockey team either, so Graham descends into a shame spiral of denial and repressed lust and tries to bury his true feelings with copious amounts of alcohol. His best friend Bella and occasional fuck buddy, Bella, is worried about him, but doesn't understand why he's careening out of control.

It's quite clear that sooner or later Graham and Rikker are going to have to talk and face the past between them. It's also obvious that both guys still have a lot of complex feelings for the other. Graham isn't ready or interested in coming out as gay and Rikker isn't going to force him, even though he's no longer willing, or able, to live a lie. It's going to be a very tense hockey season for two guys at Harkness College.

I haven't read a whole lot of gay romance, which is probably something I should work on changing, and I have very little experience outside my own hetero normative existence. None of my gay friends or colleagues have ever (as far as I know of, it's not like they tell me everything) had to face serious condemnation, harassment or violence because of their sexual identity. Their families, friends and co-workers have never been anything but supportive of them and while there are narrow-minded and violent bigots everywhere, Norway is a very progressive country with equal rights granted to lesbians and gays in regards to gay marriage, adoption, assisted fertility and the like.

At the same time, I work at a school where many of the teenagers are extremely hostile to the idea of homosexuality and several kids have said they think it should be outlawed or that gay people should be imprisoned or stoned. In the six years I've worked there, I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of kids who have been confident and strong enough to be out openly at the school, and then usually not until tenth grade, when their peers are getting a bit more mature and ready to graduate. What I'm trying to say with these TL, DR paragraphs is that I have no idea what it's like to be gay, and certainly not to have to hide your sexual preferences, feelings and desires because you might be faced with harassment or violence if you showed your true self.

Hence Michael Graham's struggle and complete denial wasn't always easy to relate to. While Rikker was beaten up and rejected by his bigoted family, he clearly ended up in a much better place than Graham, as his grandmother was a loving and wonderful woman and Vermont was a much more open and accepting place to grow up. He was able to openly live the life he wanted, at least until he applied to play hockey for a religious college and was outed by a malicious ex. The management at the varsity team at Harkness are obviously more open-minded, with the coach and student manager being completely fine with Rikker's identity. Nonetheless, there are a lot of the players who are less than comfortable with the idea that Rikker is gay and keep making snide remarks and getting on his case about it.

Graham escaped the beating, but as a result wasn't forced to come out to his family and friends. He's riddled with guilt for running away, letting the boy he loved be beaten, and never even came to see him in the hospital. His true sexual preferences are tied up with so much guilt, fear and shame, but until Rikker walks back into his life, he's been able to avoid facing up to it, getting by with getting drunk and hooking up with women to hide his true desires. With Rikker there as a constant reminder of his tragic past and his true feelings, Graham gets to a point where he can't bottle it anymore. Once again, he can't keep himself away from Rikker, but he also isn't ready to have anything but a secret relationship. He isn't confident or brave enough to face the unpleasantness that would come with being openly gay and so keeps hurting the man he loves by refusing to be openly seen with him. I found Graham frustrating for a lot of the book, and didn't really like the way he would string Rikker along, but at the same time, I couldn't really blame him for his reluctance to crawl out of the closet, seeing how Rikker was treated by his old team and still faces shit for his choices.

Of all of the Ivy League books, this is the one that actually features a fair amount of hockey being played, what with both Rikker and Graham being key players on the Harkness varsity team. Hartley from The Year We Fell Down is the team captain, and one of the ones who's completely openly supportive of Rikker and furious every time there are slurs written on Rikker's locker or rival players shout insults. I mentioned in a previous review that I couldn't actually care less about the sport aspect of any of these New Adult romances that I'm discovering that I really enjoy. I therefore couldn't tell you if the hockey part is in any way accurate, and wouldn't have minded if there was less of it. Still, it seemed accurate enough, even though I could have lived without the reminder of how awful having a serious concussion is (hoping my head aches will be a thing of the past after the new glasses I get next week).

Once again, this is a pretty angsty romance, with a especially Graham having a lot of issues to work through both by himself and Rikker before they eventually get their happy ending. I enjoyed it, if I couldn't really directly relate to all the things in it, and I thought Graham took way too long to snap out of his self pity and treat his boyfriend right. I also felt sorry that Bella, who was a pretty great character was so hurt by Graham's lies, even if he never meant to be cruel. Her book is up next and I'm looking forward to reading more about her.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 7: "The Year We Hid Away" by Sarina Bowen

Page count: 274 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Having spent the previous year pretty much focused on hockey and dating as many different women as possible, Bridger Macaulley's life drastically changes when he realises that his dead-beat mother isn't just doing drugs anymore, but that she's now part of a gang that actually cooks meths at home. He takes his seven-year-old little sister Lucy out of there and hides her in his dorm room, while spending every available moment while she's at school taking a double course load so he can graduate faster or working a part-time job to make money so they can afford somewhere to stay outside of term. He knows he has friends who would drop everything to help him, but as he's breaking several college rules, he doesn't want to involve anyone else in his illegal activities or forcing his burden onto someone else. Every spare minute he has when Lucy isn't in school is spent taking care of her. He certainly doesn't have time to date, but when he meets the intriguing Scarlet, he just can't seem to keep away from her.

Scarlet is keeping secrets of her own. She legally changed her name the summer before she went to Harkness college and had to sneak past news vans camped out outside her home to get away to school. With her high profile hockey-coach and philanthropist father accused of some truly horrible and unfathomable crimes, Scarlet sees no other option but to lie through her teeth about who she really is and who her family are. Having suffered a whole year as a pariah in her final year of high school due to the accusations against her dad, she just wants to create a new life for herself, away from the demands of her parents, her father's bodyguards and lawyers, the prosecution and the press. Accepted to Harkness on a hockey scholarship, Scarlet doesn't feel she can play the sport she so loves, in case someone connects her skill to the life she's trying to escape. She hates that she has to lie to her roommates, her new friends and especially the gorgeous Bridger, who she shares two classes with each day, but she also knows that if the truth comes out, she'll be as ostracised at Harkness as she was in high school.

Two people with burdens far heavier than anyone starting out in life should be expected to carry, trying so hard to get through the days through a filter of lies, and finding solace in the company of each other. Neither Bridger nor Scarlet are looking for love, but they grow ever closer and find that the suck that is their life gets a little bit easier to bear when they are close to the other. Bridger has very little free time to spend outside classes or work, but the lectures he spends in the company of Scarlet and the lunches they're able to have together gives him something to focus on other than the constant fear that someone will discover the truth about his family situation and either force him to return his sister to his unfit mother or worse, have her placed in foster care. Scarlet tries desperately not to think too much about her father's case and whether or not the accusations against him are actually true. Her parents and her father's unscrupulous bodyguard want her to return home to speak to her father's lawyers, while warning her away from the DA's people. Scarlet doesn't want to even think about the case and can't see what she could probably say that could help the defence or the prosecution either way. She hates that she has to lie to everyone, but especially Bridger.

There is so much pain and angst in this book and some ridiculously dramatic things happening to these young people, and yet Bowen makes it not only believable, but completely engrossing. Bridger may be the NA equivalent of a reformed rake, he used to be all about the partying and ladies, whilst now he's all about taking care of his family and doing his best to secure his and his little sister's future. Scarlet is a victim of circumstances so horrible I actually cringed while reading. I can't imagine having to be in her position and was amazed at how well she actually dealt with circumstances. I felt such strong empathy for both characters and could barely put the book down.

Neither protagonist is free to speak openly and honestly to the other, which leads to some complications and occasionally unnecessary drama and there were occurrences of some of my least favourite plot hurdles - the "I must drive away the person I love most in the world because I will make their life worse/they're unsafe with me/better off without me", but luckily none of that got too excessive and was resolved relatively quickly, allowing me to still love the book. Some of the ways in which Bridger's and Scarlet's troubles were resolved towards the end of the book were possibly a bit too convenient and neat, but romances are all about getting to the happy ending, so I'll allow it.

The Year We Fell Down was a really good book. The Year We Hid Away was even better, even though the amount of pain and angst at certain parts of the story just made me want to curl up and cringe. I'm so glad I finally got round to reading these. Thanks again to Mrs. Julien for sending me the Amazon gift card that enabled me to buy it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 6: "The Year We Fell Down" by Sarina Bowen

Page count: 270 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Corey Callahan was expecting to go to prestigious Harkness College as a varsity hockey player, but instead arrives there in a wheelchair, after ending up partly paralysed from the wait down after an accident on the ice. Her cheerful new roommate doesn't seem to mind that they have to stay in a handicap-accessible room away from all the other Harkness freshmen. If having to re-assess all her hopes and dreams about college wasn't difficult enough, Corey also falls head over heels for the extremely hot hockey player in the room across the hall, incapacitated by a leg broken in two places. The only problem? Adam Hartley already has a girlfriend.

Hartley's girlfriend is spending a semester abroad, however, and as they are both stuck in the "gimp ghetto" together, Hartley and Corey strike up a close friendship, taking lectures together, helping each other manoeuvre the dining hall and bonding over hockey played on a games console, since neither of them can skate on the ice at the moment. Corey grows more miserable as with time, she discovers that Hartley isn't just drop dead gorgeous, but smart, charming, friendly and funny. While all his friends and teammates seem to be encouraging him to forget his bitchy girlfriend, Hartley is determined to stay faithful to her. Will Corey ever have a chance with him? Will a vibrant and clearly active guy like Hartley ever see a broken girl like Corey as anything more than "one of the guys"?

Last year, a number of Cannonballers read and rated Sarina Bowen's The Ivy Years books, a series of New Adult novels set at the fictional Harkness College, mostly centred around hockey, very highly. Hence when the first book in the series was available for free on Amazon for a limited time, I jumped at the chance to get it. To complete the last few of my massive amount of reading challenges towards the end of 2015, I never got round to actually starting the series, but now, with a new reading year open to me and less demanding reading challenges on my plate, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about. Like with Kristen Callihan's Game On books, featuring American football players, I know little to nothing about the sport that many of the characters care about and couldn't really care less about it either. Unlike with American football, however, I teach at a school where quite a lot of the
teenagers play hockey and I've actually seen the game being played.

Not that there's much hockey being actually played in this book, unless you count the computer game kind. Yet it plays an integral part in the lives of both protagonists. Corey's older brother is a former student at Harkness and used to play for the college hockey team. Hartley and his teammates all know him and are amused to discover that Corey is his little sister. Because she gets the game and all their references, it doesn't take long before they've all adopted her, while trying not to talk too much about the fact that Corey won't ever again be able to play the game they all love so much. While Corey has insecurities of her looks and especially the fact that she's stuck in a wheelchair, she's determined not to let her injury define her and there certainly isn't a "poor little me" attitude about her. She works hard to work up her strength so she can get around on crutches instead of solely in the wheelchair and she has an amazing gallows humour, often making jokes at her own expense before anyone else can. The fact that Hartley is stuck in the same boat as her, confined to crutches for a whole semester, makes it less lonely for her to be a "gimp".

Hartley is an all-round pretty great guy, but can't get over that he is illegitimate and comes from a poor background. While none of his friends can really stand his snooty, privileged and wealthy girlfriend, Stacia, Hartley is amazed that someone so popular and high class would even deign to look in his direction, and puts up with way more than is entirely reasonable just to be with her. While he and Corey start out as friends, it's obvious as time passes that there is more between them than just camaraderie, and once he becomes aware of the feelings Corey has for him, he should either have broken up with Stacia or stopped being quite so flirty with Corey, as leading her on was just needlessly cruel. I also didn't like the way he handled being stood up on his birthday, as he'd previously been so firm about being faithful and not fooling around. Once again, it was cruel towards Corey. Hartley spending way too long coming to his senses and refusing to dump Stacia, even when he knew full well that Corey was into him, is the reason I'm deducting half a star from the rating of the book.

As well as a great, gradually developing from friendship to love relationship between the protagonists, I really liked the presence of several of the supporting characters. The friendship between Corey and her roommate Dana is a great one and Hartley's teammates were also fun when they appeared. I liked the way the girls supported each other and how Dana forced Corey out of her comfort zone occasionally, preventing her from just holing up in their room all the time, away from the world. I can absolutely see why Sarina Bowen's books were popular among so many and am glad I finally got to jump on the band wagon too.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.