Christmas Cupid by Ilsa Madden-Mills
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Dear Sneaky Santa,
Christmas Cupid
I’d like to have a word about your sense of humor. Was it really necessary to stick me, a professional hockey player nursing an injury and avoiding the media, in an isolated cabin with a bratty, boot-designing princess who seems to have made it her mission to despise me? I mean, come on, what did I ever do to you?
And let’s talk about our first encounter. Was it your intention for her to barge in on me while I was enjoying a soak in the tub? It wasn’t exactly my finest moment, and I’m sure she didn’t appreciate the view of my massive body floundering around as I tried to grab a towel.
Now, I’m stuck with her, thanks to a mutual acquaintance, in the middle of a snow blizzard, navigating through bear attacks, sketchy neighbors, and whole lot of tension. I had plans, Santa, plans to escape to Cabo and forget about the world, not to be trapped with a woman who thinks I’m unworthy of her time just because she can’t stand hockey players.
Oh, and speaking of our delightful Iris, she’s stingier with her food than Scrooge was with his pennies! I’m not asking for a feast, but a guy’s got to eat! And could you possibly turn her yippy dog into a reindeer or something? It would certainly add to the Christmas spirit and save my eardrums.
I’m trying to rediscover the meaning of Christmas, and you throw me into this chaos? Is this some kind of test, or are you just having a jolly laugh up there in the North Pole?
So here’s my Christmas wish, Santa: sprinkle a bit of your magic and either get me out of here or be a Cupid and ignite a fiery, undeniable passion between us, because right now, this scenario is frostier than a snowman.
Slapshotting Through the Snow, Kyler Blanchette
Holiday/sports/forced proximity romance!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💜❤️💖
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍
Character development: 😟🤭😤☺️🥰
The heroine: Iris Miller – her former boyfriend broke up with her last year, just a few weeks before Christmas. She had been expecting him to ask her to get married, but instead he married someone else. Her brother, a professional hockey player, is worried about the fact that she hasn’t really recovered from the breakup so he suggests that she spend some time before Christmas at a mountain cabin he had paid for but couldn’t use.
The Hero: Kyler Blanchette (a.k.a. The Beast) – he was an enforcer for the Nashville Predators professional hockey team. He has been injured multiple times in the past, bad injuries like a skate to the forehead requiring fifteen stitches. However, this time he pinched a nerve in his hand, and it is killing him to have to sit out games because of such a sissy injury. Though his agent and the doctors are telling him he needs surgery and will be out the rest of the season. So, he takes his friend Will up on his offer to let him stay at an empty mountain cabin for a few days.
The Story: Iris and Kyler, along with her little french bulldog Bob end up at the cabin at the same time and the nice snowfall that was coming down on their way up the mountain has now turned into a blizzard so they are stuck and snowbound. Iris has never been fond of hockey players, except her brother, and Kyler really wanted some peace and quiet, so things don’t start off too well for either of them.
“I have two cases of beer and a few bottles of Jack in the back seat. I brought no luggage. What I’m going to do, while giving my right wrist a break, is exercise my left. I’m going to get drunk off my ass and act like a real mountain man who hates everybody.”
These two really dislike each other from the start, I guess it was because of an incident in the past when Iris was getting over her ex and Kyler hit on her at a drunken party. But they clashed over just about everything, yet they were physically attracted to each other, so the forced proximity dictated that they eventually had to be civil towards each other.
This was a really cute holiday/sports romance and I love anything Ilsa Madden-Mills puts out. She is one of the best at sports romance and she has a great sense of humor. The little dog was a nice addition to the story. I really liked both characters and I loved the fact that even though this was considered a novella, it was a full story. I wouldn’t mind reading Iris’s brother Will’s story as well. He seems like a hottie and a fun guy!
I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
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