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Review

4 stars

Love, love, love!

Oh my goodness, I loved being back in this world! Sarina Bowen has created a fantastic sports romance series with these books, and I read with giddy excitement revisiting the characters and losing myself in the fun, witty and exciting feel of these stories.

This book belongs to Brooklyn Bruiser, Jason Castro. A solid player for his team, he’s also a bit of a player off the ice, sticking to a strict ‘one time only’ deal with women. He’s not a manwhore, he’s just a guy devoted to his career and who wants to avoid all other entanglements. It’s a situation that works well for him – until Heidi Jo Pepper comes along.

Heidi Jo is interning with the Bruisers. She has dreams of managing their office, but before she can do that, her father (NHL Commissioner and all-round dick) is making her experience every single job within the organisation as some sort of punishment for dropping out of College. Stubborn and determined to prove herself, Heidi throws herself into each and every task with enthusiasm and grit, providing pages and pages full of entertainment, and OMG, I absolutely love her!

Jason and Heidi have been sharing meaningful looks for a while, and with her now out to prove herself and live her life on her own terms, she’s got the man in her sights. There is flirting and banter, a lot of innuendo and a hilarious night out fuelled by tequila, but Jason is not only the kind of guy to not sleep with somebody who will be hanging around afterwards, but Heidi’s father holds a lot of power and he has been warned away. But the more they try to resist each other, the more their connection grows, and we all know how this is going to end.

I don’t remember ever wanting anything as badly as I want Jason Castro right now.

Flirty, sexy, and lots of fun, I loved Jason and Heidi together. They are open and honest, sweet, caring and sensitive, and they laugh and have so much fun. There is a bit of push and pull as they figure themselves out, but their unexpected tumble into love was so gorgeous to watch.

“You and I are going to be a thing.”
“A thing? What’s that?”
“It’s whatever we want it to be. It’s our thing.”

Of course there’s a bit of drama. Jason has a tragic backstory which is still very much a part of who he is in the present and affects him deeply, and Heidi’s family has its own set of issues. But there is minimal angst, the love story is gorgeous, and the story ends on a beautiful note.

“I love you against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

I loved seeing the characters from previous books in the series, and I’m excited to read Silas’ book up next, and I eagerly await any other stories that Sarina writes for these fantastic boys.

I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by Jason Clarke and Savannah Peachwood, and they do such a good job with it! Definitely a great one to listen to.

Loved it! 4 stars.