Two minutes in the box or a lifetime out?Hockey player Aidan Lefèvre’s professional and personal life is on ice. Recovering from an injury and traded to a new team, Aidan is attempting to prove his viability to his coaches, fans, and teammates. Just when he believes he’s succeeded, another accident during the playoffs threatens to unravel all of his progress.Having relocated away from family and … progress.
Having relocated away from family and friends, Aidan turns to his extroverted team captain, Christophe Fontenot, whose jovial nature lifts everyone’s spirits. But when Aidan discovers his attraction for Christophe changes the meaning of “body checking,” Aidan questions more than his hockey skills.
Should he deny what he feels or come out of the “box”?
more
MM, sports, first time, romance, easy to read, likeable characters, some angst. Many questions left unanswered in this the first book in the series, I hope that the answers are waiting in the remaining books in the series. A quick read.
I do love a good sports romance and this one is almost up to standard. On one level it’s a pretty typical coming-out/coming-to-terms story about a young man realizing that maybe, he’s not as straight as he thought. The odd combination of Louisiana and hockey was also made it a bit different from the norm.
That said there were some oddities. It’s clear that someone knows about hockey. The details when present seemed spot on, but they were presented in a weird way. I assume that the opening section of the tale was supposed to be an announcer giving us the rink-side play by play. But I’ve never heard an announcer be that fluent about a hockey game whilst mid-play before. Later there’s a pretty detailed segment presented as a news story. I’ve never read something that felt less like realistic journalism.
Following that, there’s a mid-trip airport meet-up that resolves a number of plot issues that made little sense, introduced new characters into the mix, and felt like someone had cobbled together something to make two pre-existing writing assignments into one more comprehensible story.
There’s also a bit of a language problem here… It’s certainly to be expected to have hockey-players speaking French, particularly those from Quebec. But as an avid fan of the Poirot mysteries I’ve seen how French can be incorporated into a story without interrupting the flow of the story. Here, several times I had to halt my reading and resort to Google translate to make certain I wasn’t missing anything important. I generally wasn’t, and it might not really have been necessary, but a little less “gallic charm” might be a good idea going forward.
Finally I was a bit surprised by the blurb used to describe this book in that I’d interpreted it to mean that one of the MCs sustained an injury in the playoff game. It’s clear in the first chapter that that’s NOT what happened.
This is the first in a series. Perhaps it was a bit rough around the edges. But if the problem spots are overlooked, the rest does introduce us to some interesting characters. It’s not exactly painful to endure, and I am curious about where the author will take us from here.
This was such a great read.
Definitely an awesome start to a new series.
I can’t wait to read what comes next.
I enjoyed this story quite a bit! Aidan has always thought he was straight but he in insanely attracted to Christophe. The only thing that was missing for me was the hockey part of the story. This was supposed to be a hockey romance, but there wasn’t any ice time. I’m voluntarily reviewing from an advanced copy that I received.
I don’t know much about hockey, but that did not at all negatively impact my enjoyment of Aidan’s and Christophe’s story. The focus was on the romance more than the hockey and these two main characters were interesting and had good chemistry together. It’s a bit of a grumpy/sunshine, as Aidan is dealing with repeated injuries and the repercussions from them on his career and Christophe is a happy man who helps Aidan see the good in things again. This is more and HFN than an HEA and there is a mystery that is apparently going to thread throughout the series so questions remain at the end of this book. I look forward to seeing what happens in book two.
I would of loved if this book was from both Aiden and Christophe side.
But it was easy to read and I enjoyed the story.
A first time author for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline, liked the characters, my only concern there wasn’t a lot of soul searching when it came to Aidan deciding he was gay he’d only ever dated women. I loved Christophe, all their hockey friends and the ending.
I voluntarily reviewed an arc of this book for my honest opinions of which I’m under no obligation to do so. I definitely recommend this book.
This has so much potential but it went completely unrealized from nothing being explored any deeper than the absolute surface and the fact that we went from very well written passages to me wondering if English is the author’s 2nd language and Google Translate failed them spectacularly!
For a book that in the end is claimed to have been seen by editors, beta readers, critique partners and is already live it is rife with errors with my favorites being expresso and public aeronautical transit departure. I know the second one isn’t really an error but it did remind me of the episode of Friends in which Joey wrote a letter and used the thesaurus in every word!
Single POV so we have no idea what Christophe is thinking and feeling, not that Aidan was any clearer since I don’t think he really sat down and thought through anything or made any decisions! At some point the author described Aidan as his thought pinballing (and then went on to tell us that the how the pinball game worked) and that was certainly true and didn’t change throughout. So much so that in the last 15%-20% Aidan told Christophe that (view spoiler). Talk about a wild ride!
Although I do enjoy entering a story in the middle of things I do WANT to learn through interactions and musings what happened before to reach where we are now there are things that even after finishing the story I still don’t know. For example how old is Aidan, how long is with the Civets? Was that his first season with them? If he is a forward NHL player shouldn’t he be swimming in money and have endorsements? How come he didn’t know Christophe was gay if they were for about a year in the same team? There were things with Aidan and socializing with the team that didn’t make sense outside of the scene of the moment. Also no one seemed to train in that team.
Now let’s visit the vibes and UST between Christophe and Aidan (which was another reason than threw me for a loop when it came to how long Aidan was with the Civets) that were off the charts but then the sex scenes happened and at best I can describe them as AWKWARD!
From “mouthgasms” to “fondling his own balls like worry stones” to Aidan going from “I’m not gay” to “yeah you can fuck me” to “fireworks exploded in Aidan’s anus” to Christophe saying he is looking for a relationship and not just a hookup to “indulging in the lustful desires of the flesh” to Aidan deepthroaring but being able to use the flat of his tongue to vigorously sweep it around the sensitive rim o_0 to them “listening to nature’s lullaby, and sampling each other’s delectable kisses”. And many more between all that, that I really don’t know what to think. Sexy and hot they were NOT!
Add to all that an unresolved, or maybe resolved who knows, semi stalker/blackmail situation that was forgotten by the end and never revisited and I’m really debating if I want to read the other 3 books in the series.
I received an ARC from Gay Romance Reviews and this is my honest review.
Aiden is a hockey player and is ending his first season on a new team. He was traded after suffering an injury and his old team did not think he would recover. So his new team is in the playoffs and he ties up the game with a shot, but the opposing goalie is down and not getting up. Medics move in and get him bundled up and he is taken to the hospital. His injury looks bad since no one saw him moving but no one knows what happened. This makes it worse for Aiden his first goal with his team and now it has a cloud over him.
His team does end up losing and are not out of the playoffs and the team decides to have a last season drink at the bar. Aiden goes overboard dealing with the stresses of the game and his play and he ends up being taken home by one of his team mates. The team captain looks out for him and Christophe takes care to get him to his place.
The next morning things get heated between them and Aiden is not sure how he feels. He always thought he was straight… but??? Can Christophe prove his feelings are real to Aiden? Will Aiden allow him in?
Good start to a new series
I’m not a big fan of Ice Hockey so it’s a bit weird that I read so about it so much! This time it involves two great characters; one who is very sure about himself and leads from the front as Captain of the team. The second is the new boy to the team and whilst he thought he knew himself, he comes to learn that he knew nothing about himself, or maybe anyone else, at the end of the day.
From the sports books, including Ice Hockey, that I’ve read it’s a real issue for gay men to be themselves however, in this book the Captain is out and proud with a support team. But he isn’t really the focus of the book, our focus lies with the other half of our ‘couple’, our new boy, who has lived his life playing hockey and getting by. It would appear that he has never questioned and has been traumatised by the death of his father. I did feel that the author could have given a bit more detail about the thinking of the character as this was fairly limited in terms of the way his family had talked about sexuality and how he had been brought up!
Saying that there was nothing to say that there was nothing to say that the family would be negative towards him having a boyfriend; it was his perception, but where had his fear of his mother and step-father come from?
Genevive Chamblee has written a lovely book of two people meeting at work, recognising shared traits and falling in love. You can’t always put a label that immediately or at all, in this case our couple work through this issue as well as their work problems which should be the biggest problem but because of fear become almost inconsequential at some points to the couple.
The characters are super cute in a buffed up, Ice Hockey player kind of beefy way, they have a supporting cast of random characters from neighbours to family including a hostile horny step-dad! There is good support for them both in relation to them and both the predicaments
I really enjoyed this book and could have read much more about the couple; it ended too soon for me! I wanted to know more.
I’m recommending this book for your Kindle library today xx
I honestly couldn’t put this book down I devoured it in record time .
Aiden knew his love life was pretty non existent but had neither the time or inclination to find someone .
He has moved away from family and friends so he confides in his team captain Christophe .
Christophe is out and very proud , Aiden and Christophe grow very close and then everything makes sense .
These guys are sweet and courageous.
This book is well written a beautiful story line and just so good ….
I can easily recommend this book and an easy five stars to give.
Always be who you are and then be proud of yourself…
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.
I struggled with this one. And here’s why.
Aidan is, or has been, straight. Here, he is attracted to Christophe, who is gay. You’d expect a whole lotta more soul searching and questioning going on, but there isn’t. Aidan just jumps almost straight away into bed with Christophe, after he first expresses his feeling for Aidan.
I know its only a short book, some 100 odd pages and you can only do so much in those pages, but I did not feel any sort of emotional attachment to Aidan, at all.
We also only get Aidan. Yes yes YES, I KNOW I say it often enough, but think I might have enjoyed it a little more had Christophe had a say too.
And, aside from that very first chapter, there isn’t any hockey!
So, a nice book, but not one that grabbed me. An easy read, maybe a little too easy. Someone will LOVE this book, I have no doubt. And I might have at any other time, but it just landed in the queue at the wrong time.
Not my best review, but I’ll plead illness and hope that someone will forgive me.
3 solid stars
**same worded review will appear elsewhere**
This is the first book I have read by Genevive Chamblee and I have to say it won’t be my last, I love sports romance and within that genre the world of hockey are some of my favourite reads, so this was always going to be on my radar. Two hockey players one is out and proud and one is struggling with his sexuality and this concept Intrigued me how would the world of the tough hot guys of hockey feel about two teammates being together well they excepted it like we all should after all #LoveisLove. This is a true love story that is beautifully written, the chemistry between Aiden and Christophe is sizzling and I loved the journey this author takes you on as these two fall in love. Sometimes you just have to follow your heart and not head when it comes to love and that’s exactly what these two had to do to get past the scary thoughts of what will people think…….
Looking forward to reading more from this author.