Tag Archives: hockey romance

Brooklyn Bruisers Series: Brooklynaire by Sarina Bowen

book review April 9, 2019 Leave a comment

Brooklynaire was my first DNF of 2019. The story angered me enough that I  both jumped ahead and checked with a friend to see if its glaring blind spot was addressed. It wasn’t and I gave up.

Long Version: Sarina Bowen is a strong romance writer whose work can be uneven and, more importantly, problematic, but I keep reading her books. The Ivy Years series is truly excellent and includes a classic novella, Blonde Date; however, the last novel (The Fifteenth Minute) is, at best, tone-deaf. Co-written with Elle Kennedy, Bowen’s Wags series has similar issues and while I enjoyed Good Boy, in spite of questionable elements, I did not like Stay owing to some love scene issues and the way they blatantly excuse sexual harassment.

In short, Sarina Bowen is a good example of “YMMV’. But none of her usual items were my challenge with Brooklynaire. In it, a workplace romance between a billionaire boss and his operations manager takes off after years of longing and covertly enjoying each other’s scents. I don’t like the boss/employee trope, but I do like a marriage of convenience plot, so I overlooked it and started reading.

Nate is a self-made billionaire who, from a tech startup, has built an empire which now includes a Brooklyn hockey franchise.  Seven years ago, he hired Rebecca to run his small, but rapidly growing office and her role has evolved with the company. Secretly in love with each other, when Rebecca gets a concussion, she and Nate finally start to connect.

Ensuring she gets the care she requires, Nate supports and sends gifts to Rebecca as she recovers in the apartment she shares with her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, and their new baby. Realizing Rebecca needs calm, Nate asks her to come and stay at his giant house. It is a generous and logical progression of the marriage of convenience set up: She moves in, their long simmering interest boils over into a steamy encounter, love blooms, tra la la, the end,  were it not for this flashback to when Rebecca is first hired:

“Salary,” Stew mutters, and Nate makes a reply. Stew nods. “What about stock options?”

Nate’s nose wrinkles “Nah, not for the clerical staff.”

Whatever Rebecca thinks. She isn’t really sure what stock options are, but what she needs right now is a real paycheck, anyway.

Reading Note: Eff you, this better get fixed.

Reviewer’s Note: It doesn’t.

Rebecca has worked for Nate for seven years from a tiny startup to a multi-billion dollar corporation. He has enough money to buy a hockey franchise and he has never, EVER, given Rebecca any stock options or any kind of remuneration appropriately recognizing her contributions. What a dick!  She should be a millionaire. At the very least, she should be able to afford a larger apartment and not worry about her medical bills. This bullshit story decision was made to perpetuate the uneven power dynamic between the two leads. Why couldn’t they be more equal? Rebecca could still come and stay with Nate. Billionaire heroes aren’t my favourite to begin with and sending flowers is nice, but insanely successful bosses who don’t reward the staff that has been intrinsic to their success take a sledge-hammer to my willing suspension of disbelief. Nate was unredeemable, so I quit.

Reviewer’s Fun Fact: I read this book about a woman with a concussion while I had one myself which was pretty challenging. Rebecca’s was much milder than mine and while I started this review at 9 weeks in, I am finishing it at 16 weeks  since screen work is my biggest challenge; thus, even if Brooklynaire is lousy, at least it helped me track my progress.

Sarina Bowen’s Catalog

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my  streamlined recommendations list.

Even with a wink to romance standards, this cover is ridiculous:

Wags Series: Stay by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

book review, book reviews September 8, 2017 Leave a comment

I swear that Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy are writing romances inspired by the hashtag notallmen, thought I’m not sure even that’s correct since the men in this series, and a lot of Bowen’s solo work, often behave in a way that is unacceptable, but is supposedly meant to be forgivable because they are nice guys. As my romance twin, Beth-Ellen, said, it’s as though they are defending men and, she added, who is the audience they are doing that for? Stay was a mostly decent romance because Kennedy and Bowen don’t seem to be capable of less, but there were a variety of elements that made me uncomfortable.

Hailey runs a virtual personal assistant business with her ex-husband in Toronto. She takes care of the VIPs personally and one of them is local hockey hottie Matt Erickson. A divorced father of twins, he is a little once bitten twice shy until he meets up with Hailey. Things move on from there, a little precipitously if you ask me given that there are children involved, and soon they are moving forward in their lives together.

Now back to the #notallmen aspect. In the previous book in the series, Good Boy, the hero climbs into bed with the heroine while she is sleeping. In this one…

Hailey has a client called MrEightInches who sends the agency requests with photos such as, “naked except for a stretchy pair of bright blue briefs, barely covering his erection, which lays angled in the briefs, straining the fabric.” Are Hailey and her colleague offended? Do they call him out for this behavior and terminate his contract? No, silly, they find it funny and enjoy his hijinks. They are entertained and gleeful each time he sends them a new request. When they find out the reason behind his, apparently, joking behavior, it all makes sense. See? He’s harmless!

Matt calls Hailey “Hottie” before they even start dating, meet, or talk. Her initials are HTE and he gives her the nickname in their correspondence. She doesn’t object despite the complete lack of respect and professionalism it shows on Matt’s part. He doesn’t mean any harm, so what’s the problem? Matt is a good guy. His presumption is excused.

In an encounter with Hailey’s ex, and before their first real date, Matt establishes their relationship by smacking her ass in front of her ex. “To my disbelief, Matt smacks my butt lightly before strolling out the door. I gape after him, unsure whether to be pissed or amused.” The correct answer is, of course, pissed.

I’m not quite sure what to do with all of my annoyance. I understand that genuine, sincere guys sometimes make mistakes,  behave inappropriately, or cross the line, but I can’t comprehend why it has become a recurring theme in Sarina Bowen’s work alone and in her joint efforts with Elle Kennedy. Can we just not do this? I get enough of poorly judged behavior being excused in real life.

My last note is that I was squicked out by the love scenes in Stay. Matt and Hailey act out a power dynamic that I found creepy: he pretends to be her coach, . “Such a good girl,” he whispers. “The coach is proud of you.” No, nix, nein, nyet, non, o-nay, nope, nay, NEWP! I am extremely uncomfortable with sex with power disparities like this and in particular ones that feign involvement of students or vulnerable people. The second the phrase “good girl” comes into play, I am OUT.

Sarina Bowen’s Catalogue gives an overview of her published works . Her Ivy Years series is particularly strong and includes a classic novella, Blonde Date.

By Elle Kennedy and Sarina Bowen:
Him – LGBTQ, New Adult, love it!
Us – LGBTQ, New Adult, liked it a lot
Wags Series:
Good Boy – I can’t decide if I recommend it or not.
Stay – see above

By Elle Kennedy:
Off Campus Books 1 – 4
The Deal – very good, I have re-read it
The Mistake – good
The Score – Entitled, privileged guy gets everything he wants. Granted that describes a lot of romances, but it’s annoying here. He’s a dick in The Goal, too.
The Goal – good, but not my cup of tea

Adult Contemporary:
One Night of Sin – meh
One Night of Scandal – meh
Elle Kennedy and Vivien Arend: All Fired Up – skip it

 Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my  streamlined recommendations list.

Scoring Chances: Power Play by Avon Gale

book review February 8, 2017 Leave a comment

My quest for good romance continues with a book recommended to me on Pajiba my online home away from home.

Max Ashford’s career in the NHL was cut short when a checking accident on the ice left him with compromised peripheral vision. Working on a career behind the bench, he joins head coach Misha Samarin with the Spartanburg Spitfires in South Carolina. It’s an ECHL team – meaning a double A hockey franchise that acts as a feeder to the minors and, with any luck for the players, to the NHL itself. The pay isn’t great, but Max is paying his dues and Misha is financially secure after a long career playing for the NHL. He also happens to be the opponent who was involved in Max’s career ending injury.

Chosen for the potential publicity resulting from their NHL encounter, the Spitfire’s unscrupulous  owner hires them for  the losingest team in the league. Neither man is thrilled and only Misha is still carrying any baggage from the accident, but he and Max slowly pull the players into a solid team. Along the way they, of course, fall in love.

Overall, I enjoyed Power Play. The lead characters were both interesting and likeable, Max in particular is adorable, and Gale alternated between their perspectives really well, including Misha’s excellent, but not perfect English. For drama, the story had Misha’s angst over many elements in his past including what he had to do to get away from his monster of a father and safely out of Russia. A gay man who has largely closeted himself, he has some issues to work through and is a brooder. Cheerful, easygoing Max, on the other hand, has recently realised he is bisexual and while the attraction to Misha surprises him, he’s not fighting any battles against it, or anything else.

With Power Play, I am again wondering where I can find a romance in which both leads are just, if you’ll excuse the pun, straight up bisexual or gay. Why does this kind of relationship have to be new to one or both of the men involved? Why can’t they both have have comfortably dated men in the past? I don’t need sexual initiation scenes. I just want to read a love story about two people finding their match without drama surrounding their orientation. Having looked at other books in the series, it seems each pairing suffers from this same syndrome so I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of them. Fortunately, the same lovely person who suggested this book provided me with a long list of other LBGTQ romances to try, so I will be moving on to another novel soon.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my  streamlined recommendations list. I have a list of LGBTQ romances, too.

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Brooklyn Bruisers: Hard Hitter by Sarina Bowen

book review February 7, 2017 Leave a comment

Sarina Bowen burst into my romance reading life in 2015 with her Ivy Years series and my discovery happily coincided with her career taking off. This has provided me with lots of reading material. Though none of her more recent books have captured the magic of those first ones I read (Blonde Date is a perfect novella), I am continuing to buy her books; however as the prices have gone up, my interest is going down. It’s one thing to be a $5 author, it’s another to be an $8 or $10 one. At this point, only Laura Florand, Lisa Kleypas, and Courtney Milan are in the latter category. I don’t want them to be lonely, I really don’t, though, to be fair, I used to have a job where I earned scads of AmEx points and consequently didn’t have to actually pay for a book for several years. It’s made me spoiled and cantankerous, but I digress.

Patrick O’Doul is the captain and enforcer on the new NHL franchise team the Brooklyn Bruisers. Purchased by a tech billionaire as a hobby, the young team is getting its skates under itself and the assorted employees are falling in love as the book series grows. Patrick’s love interest is a massage therapist for the team (I can’t remember, but I’m assuming that there is more than one for all those men) and he has been reluctant to let her, or anyone for that matter, lay hands on him.

Ari Bettini is devoted to her job with the hockey team, traveling and training with them as necessary, and it provides focus away from her long-term relationship that recently went completely sideways before crashing into a wall and bursting into flames. When she finally gets Patrick on her massage table to address his hip issue, sparks quickly fly. The two become involved and complications naturally ensue which lead, as well they ought, to a happily ever after for the couple.

Patrick  worships the ground Ari walks on and I while I love an unapologetically besotted hero, it wasn’t enough to make up for the fact that many elements of Hard Hitter felt under-explored or oversimplified. Patrick was a bit of a cipher with a cursory backstory insufficiently fleshed out to give his portrayal true heft. It was the “that poor man has secret pain” approach to character development which Bowen has fallen back on in other books as well. Ari suffers from the opposite problem.  She has been given too much baggage, but the result is similarly underplayed. He ex-boyfriend’s behavior changed greatly towards the close of their relationship and the escalation to threats of violence not only from him but from thugs he is associated with should have been a lot more traumatic for her. If either Ari or Patrick’s experiences had been more thoroughly addressed, it would have benefited the story.

After Hard Hitter and even with my qualms, I will still read the next Sarina Bowen book, but on sale or from my library. I just won’t be paying full price again until she writes a more satisfying book.

Sarina Bowen’s Catalogue gives an overview of her published works . Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my  streamlined recommendations list.