If there’s one thing that’s a certainty in life, it’s change. It’s taken Victor Kalinski years to settle into the kind of happiness that he thought he’d never find. The small town of Cayuga, New York, has welcomed him warmly. It’s given him a championship team to coach, a tightly-knit group of friends, a father who he has reconciled with, and a safe place to raise the son he adores. The small … raise the son he adores. The small town has also blessed him with Dan Arou, his husband and his soulmate, and one of the most skilled forwards on the Cougars. Given Dan’s outstanding play in their recent Calder Cup win, it was inevitable that Dan’s time in the minors was about to come to an end.
When Dan is given a starting position in Boston, Victor’s serene life is thrown into complete chaos. Pride over Dan’s accomplishment fills his heart but facing a long, lonely season in Cayuga is causing no small amount of discord. Add in a wedding that will give his son a new stepfather, health issues for his dad, and Victor’s own penchant for saying things that aren’t exactly politically correct, and the impending explosion is guaranteed to blow Vic’s life to bits. Life-altering choices will have to be made. Will Victor rebound from the challenges, or will he be unable to accept the upheavals that life has dealt him?
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The first stories with Vic are the Point Shot trilogy – read those first (but I wanted to highlight this story for folks who don’t realize there is more Vic available.)
Vic is my very favorite of all the great hockey characters VL Locey has created or collaborated on. I loved this continuation of his story. Vic is rough and unapologetically crude and unpolished, damaged and tough. He has a fierce love for the important people in his life, an innate sense of fairness he tries but fails to squash, an addictive personality, and both the best (in Dan Arou) and worst luck. Some of the worst he makes for himself, of course. But he tries so damned hard.
This doesn’t really stand alone. You would be well advised to first read the Point Shot Trilogy Boxed Set – three novellas that introduced Victor Kalinski and Dan Arou to the world. Other characters also show up here from the related Cayuga Cougars stories, and are all great, but really what you need are those first 3 novellas plus Coach’s Challenge. Watch Vic scrape himself up off the ground and take responsibility for his self-sabotage. Watch Dan find and fall for and love him wholeheartedly, for all his strengths and regardless of his weaknesses.
*some spoilers below for the earlier stories*
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In this book, we see the life that Vic and Dan carved out falling apart on multiple axes. Dan is finally getting his shot at the pros, but it will put him in Boston and on the road, while Vic is in Cayuga. Vic’s father, with whom he is trying to repair a relationship, faces some health issues. Heather, Vic’s baby-mom, and her husband Brooks are struggling, and want to move down South with little Jack. And Jack is letting his inner two hearts fly, sometimes indulging his boy heart, sometimes his girl heart, sometimes both together.
One of the most poignant aspects of the book for me is the feeling Vic has of not being able to protect his genderqueer child. The move from marginally accepting Cayuga deeper into the conservative South is fraught with potential for pain for little Jack. Brooks may promise he won’t let anyone hurt or bully the child, but it’s a hollow promise. Jack is a sweetly brilliant butterfly, rocking his camo shorts and red sparkly ballgown. For kids like Jack, a better house and yard and money coming in may not balance out the way the world is going to treat him down there.
Vic is trapped; his life is being pulled apart and rearranged completely out of his control. The people he loves are going to be spread out across the country, out of range for hugs and together-time, and facing things he can’t protect them from. And Vic’s coping mechanisms when life goes to shit have never been healthy.
This one is poignant, painful, sweet, and ultimately satisfying. Dan deserves an award for loving Vic so wholeheartedly, body and spirit, the way Vic needs it. And may the world treat little Jack, and all the kids like him, more kindly in the future than it has in the past. (less)
I loved Vic’s voice in this story. His personality comes across loud and clear, and it was easy to be swept away on the rollercoaster of his emotions. I liked how he says it how he sees it, which isn’t always very PC, yet makes him feel very real.
I really felt for his feeling of abandonment as his life explodes around him, and his demons do their best to entice him into places he shouldn’t go. The story kept me turning pages and I got drawn into his and Dan’s world very quickly.
I love Vic and Dan’s relationship, and how although Dan loves Vic completely he’s still aware of his faults, and worries he might enable him. They fit together well with their different personalities. The strong sense of family is something I always enjoy in hockey romances, and this story is very much about family, with Vic and Dan’s family issues, their parenting of Jack, plus the Cougars and Dan’s new team. I liked the glimpse of characters from other books, and the two therapists totally rock.
I enjoyed the story’s conclusion, and am looking forward to read what happens in the next stage of their family’s journey.
Victor and Dan are back!
Victor Kalinsky and Dan Arou were introduced in V.L. Locey’s Point Shot Trilogy and we read about them again in Coach’s Challenge, book 3 of the Cayuga Cougars series. I’ve read Coach’s Challenge but I haven’t read the entire Point Shot Trilogy. All of this is to say that even if you haven’t read any of those stories, I think you can still enjoy Rebound.
Victor is a hard person to like at times. He is brash, irreverent, caustic and kind of a dick; he’s also one of those characters that people come to love and I do love him. He’s had a hard way to go. His mother was abusive and his father left him with her and disappeared. An injury left him unable to play hockey so now he’s a coach.
The excellent blurb gives you detailed information about this story; I’ll tell you how it made me feel. I wanted to hug Victor so hard because of the things he goes through in this book. He becomes depressed because of things happening in his life and his hard-won sobriety is in jeopardy. I laughed at times when Victor was being his typically irreverent self and I cried when life kept kicking his butt.
I love how V.L. Locey has continued to keep writing Victor as the same irreverent character he was in the previous books. He knows he’s an a-hole but he just can’t seem to help himself. Rebound is told from Victor’s point of view but the next book in the series, Final Shot, will focus on Dan; I can’t wait to read it.
A copy of this book was provided to me but my review was voluntary and not influenced by the author.
***Reviewed for Xtreme-Delusions dot com***
I would rate this 3.75 stars.
This is a spin-off starring characters introduced in V.L. Locey’s Point Shot Trilogy and again in Coach’s Challenge, Book 3 of the Cayuga Cougars series. You could read this on its own, but you wouldn’t love the main character as much as you need to for this story to shine. Victor, aka “The Venomous Pole” is the coach of an ice hockey team, married to the forward Dan, but when Dan gets sent up to the NHL, their settled life gets flipped upside down. This builds on all the trials they have faced as a couple and takes the story in difficult places, showing what many romances fail to–what happens after Happily Ever After. This is for those people that want to see what everyday love looks like, when two people repeatedly choose to stay together through thick and thin, blended family, health scares, separation, and alcoholism. I assume this will also be a trilogy also.
Because this book is told from Victor’s POV, expect rude, crass, angry and defeatist thinking. It’s also written in common vernacular. Besides having a traumatic childhood, he has brain damage from concussions and has named the worry wort voice in his head Igor. Victor is also in love with his husband, loves his 5 year old son, is working to forgive his dad, whilst also trying to maintain good relations with the mother of his son and her fiance. Sometimes he succeeds and sometimes Igor, or the cruel inner voice of his mother, wins instead and so he fails. One of the most difficult parts of the book is seeing him fall off the wagon. The other difficult part is feeling his worry over how to protect his genderqueer son from people’s meanness and judgment when Heather moves Jack to Louisiana. Jack is a huge part of this book with age appropriate dialogue.
While some of the decisions Vic made upset me, I understood why – because Dan, Heather, Brooks, and Gene all upset me more. There are hot, gritty sex scenes here, but I felt distant from Dan because Vic did. I didn’t like Dan’s response to Vic’s drinking. I also felt like this was just completely ignored afterwards. I applaud him for not participating in AA, as there are good science based programs out there, but he wasn’t participating in one of those either. I enjoyed his therapy sessions with Doc L and Professor T for the comic relief, rather than for seeing any actual type of support for Victor. He is still demoralized and depressed, although the book ends on an uplifting note of hope for him. It will be interesting to see Jack as he grows older, and that time when Dan (like all sports figures) can no longer play hockey–how will that change their relationship?
The cover design is by Meredith Russell. It communicates that is about hockey and shows a darkness I imagine Vic’s head is in.
I didn’t realize how much I missed Vic and Dan until I read this. Vic is such a strong character and Dan (sighs) is just perfect for him 🙂 The start of a wonderful trilogy – highly recommended
I am always happy to see a new series from this author. The more the merrier, with the same quality, amazing characters and stories you get invested in as if they were your own! This book is an amazing read that I loved from page 1! Awesome as always, need more. Also as always!
Everything and I do mean EVERYTHING we have come to know and love about Vic , Dan and Jack are in this new story. We get to see more of their lives, struggles, greatness, loveliness and wicked senses of humor NOT to mention amazing way with words and phrases. A lot of things are addressed in this deeper than ever before. New challenges are put before one of my most favorite couples. How they deal or don’t , deal with them is brilliantly written. Chuckling, outright laughing, gasping in fear of what might happen, needing of fans due to sexy times, weepy eyes, yelling at a certain someone, NO!, wanting to smack someone hard and just LOVING every bit of the journey I was taken on…all happen in this book. Cannot recommend this enough!
OK, so a little advice; read the previous stories about Vic and Dan. They have thier own trilogy, Point Shot Trilogy Boxset (this way its all in one book), then skip over to the Cayuga Cougars, book 3 this is also about them. This will set you up for this book that is def not a standalone. You get to see the progression of their relationship, how their son came into the picture and just really come to understand Vic. Because I had just done the Vic and Dan binge read, this book gave me the feels. My heart broke for Vic when Heather dropped her news. This is about what happens after they got their HEA and life becomes… well life, the ever changing roller coaster that we are all riding. I give this 5 stars.
I love Dan and Vic together, however, I felt their relationship was lacking in this book, as Dan is gone through most of it since he’s trying to make the team in Boston. This leaves Vic alone to deal with a lot of heavy things. A slip up costs him his job, his father is having health issues, his son’s mother wants to move him out of state, and he’s struggling to accept that her fiancé will be raising his son more than he will. It’s a lot for poor Vic, and it felt like he was struggling not only to find himself, but to find happiness throughout most of the book.
Despite this, there are some light moments involving Vic and his son, Jack, and I love how all the adults accept him for who he is. There are also humorous interactions between Vic and his psychiatrist.
The road to happiness in this book isn’t easy for Vic, but he learns and grows along the way. While I would have liked to have seen more of him with Dan, I still enjoyed the book. It’s well-written and readers will definitely root for Vic.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy**