Rating: 4.5 🌈
Kris Xappa’s getting ready to make his post season retirement announcement. On top of that, there’s the eminent launch of the charity youth foundation, Forward Thinking, he started with his two long time best friends but nothing is going according to plans.
In trying to stop a fight at a friends bar, Kris comes off looking like the instigator in a vid someone posted to a media account that went viral. That’s had a huge negative effect on every part of his life.
Additionally , there’s his teammate, Rory Stanton ,who’s also the younger brother of his best friend. Rory is injured and and in need of his assistance.
What more could go wrong? Ah yes, mutual attraction and Kris ‘s sexuality which has always been identified as “straight “ to his fans and team.
Once more Aislin has given us complicated men in hockey, off the wall chemistry, a great story, and a romance to sigh over.
Hockey romances are my jam and Aislin’s Stick Side series is just one amazing book after another. Each managing to loosely connect the characters and their stories to each other’s by their teams and struggles with their sexuality and battles to navigate homophobia within and without their sport.
Each character is layered, individualist, and nuanced. From the main couple to everyone who supports them, all feel believable and relatable.
When Kris is feeling the intensity of the exposure from the media and the unfairness of the slights against his character, which he’s not allowed to push back against, it’s such a real situation that the reader feels absolutely in his corner.
Everything in the book will connect you to these men and their journey towards love and happiness.
It’s a pleasure to join them on the road to HEA and whatever their future may hold. Have i said how much I adore this series?
I truly do. Indeed I do. Including Two Man Team.
Highly recommended. All of them.
Stick Side Series:
On the Ice #1
Christmas On the Ice #1.5
A Valentine’s Trade #1.7
The Nature of the Game #2
The Nature of Christmas #2.5
Shots On Goal #3
Risking the Shot #4
Calder & Lacroix #4.1
Two-Man Team #5
Synopsis:
NHL team look bad. Now, with orders to keep his head down, the last thing he needs is to develop feelings for his younger teammate—and best friend’s brother. The fact that he can’t stop thinking about their one illicit kiss doesn’t mean anything.
Rory Stanton is perfectly capable of taking care of himself and doesn’t need his brother’s best friend keeping an eye on him. Sure, he likes having Kris’s attention, but he’d rather have it for entirely different reasons. Too bad that one kiss they shared wasn’t enough to convince Kris to take a chance on him.
When an injury lands Rory in Kris’s care, will these teammates be able to see past the obstacles to become a two-man team?
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 