Name: The Penalty Box
ISBN: 9781999053840

Odette Stone

He's a professional hockey player that lives on the edge. I prefer to play life by the rules.I'm the personal assistant at a sports agency that no one notices.Unless they need coffee.I don't like sports and I like professional athletes even less.I'm indifferent to the mostly male clientele, except for one.Mica "the savage" Petrov.When it comes to wild antics, Mica is the biggest offender of them all.He's reckless, wild and carelessly charming.I'm mortified that I find him attractive.But it doesn't matter because the guy hasn't taken a second look at me.Not once. In two years.Mica's career jeopardizing situation requires drastic measures to be taken to keep him in the game.He's got money, I've got debt and my boss has a crazy idea.Which is how I found myself stepping up to save him from himself.But at what cost?How long can I keep fighting my attraction?What ghosts from his past is he brawling with?All I know is that I need to defend my heart before this big defenseman steals it away.Can we win this game? Or is it too late for either of us?

The Penalty Box

Charlie 

A little hockey mafia romance, my two loves together

Tiana holt

Nialani Thompson

Absolutely love. Love love love. I live for mica and Charlie is just the most perfect girl ever. This story was a whirlwind and I am a sucker for marriage of convenience. Everything was so great! Amazing book

Samantha 

each hockey dude bro seems better than the last 

Such a fun read, truthfully I’ve been zipping through this series rather fast and Mica’s book kept a perma-smile on my face. It had sass, cute banter, and a smidge of drama

Lauren Nicole

** spoiler alert **
           i'm going back to the fantasy genre where there's significantly less baby tropes.

too thriller-y for a trashy, hockey romance novel lmao. kinda cute tho.

also wasn't canadian enough for me ✌️

Meghan Morris

I loved this, until I reached the end. If what happened at the end didn’t happen this was a solid 4.5 for the slow burn fake marriage and marriage of convenience trope. But BOY was the ending. 🤦‍♀️

Corey’s Books

The Penalty Box - Odette Stone

3.5 ⭐️

I loved this, until I reached the end. If what happened at the end didn’t happen this was a solid 4.5 for the slow burn fake marriage and marriage of convenience trope. But BOY was the ending. 🤦‍♀️

Fake marriage

Forced Proximity

She fell first but he fell harder

Jennifer Eggleston 

Enjoyable read ...

New to me author and series however Hockey Romance is one of my fave type of stories. Mica and Charlie is an acquaintance/friends to love story with a pinch of suspense. 

Steamy read with a HEA. If you are a fan of Jaci Burton’s books then you will enjoy this author as well. 

My gripe ... and it’s a small one but .... there is an epilogue and I thought it would have focused on their new family member not the Stanley Cup.

Andrea Rodriguez

Not sure where to start with this one. I really liked the first like 40ish % and then it kinda went downhill from there. 

I’ll start with the things I liked because I don’t want this to be an entirely negative review. 

Although Mica wasn’t great with words, I did appreciate how he showed he cared through his actions. He was sweet in that way and it was cute how he would always go above and beyond for Charlie. 

Tons of tropes in this one and I thought they were all executed well. I ate them all up lmao. We had marriage of convenience, forced proximity, sorta enemies to lovers, etc. 


Now for the things I didn’t like:

There was something about the dialogue that just was a big miss for me. It felt stilted, flat, and didn’t flow naturally at all. The author didn’t use a lot of descriptors around dialogue so it was difficult to discern how the characters were feeling while they said things. It made for an odd, difficult experience while reading.

The pacing was a little weird too. It was very abrupt at times and seemed to move really quickly from one sentence to the next. There was a lot of telling and not enough showing, imo.

Also, I am all for a possessive, demanding man, but there needs to be more than that. I needed to see a sweet, romantic side to him. Like, I get that we got to see him be very protective of her through his actions, which I appreciated, but god damn he could not have been more off putting in the way that he spoke to her sometimes. (slight spoilers from here on out)

Exhibit A:

He slapped my ass. “Yes, wench. Go cook for your husband.”

Sir, lmao. No. Just no. 

Or how about this part when he finally agreed to move forward with their relationship past the fake marriage.

Exhibit B:

I felt like my heart was hanging by a thread over a molten lava pit of fire. I cleared my throat again. “If things are this fucking hot between us in a year, I’d be open to seeing where this went.”


I am not a fan of romances where the woman falls first. We know from the beginning that she had a crush on him for 2 years and I was hoping we’d get the classic “he’s been in love with her this entire time” trope, but nope. At one point she mentions that he never even noticed her and he says, “But I notice you now.” Like?? That’s sweet but also, no lmao. 

Last thing, there was just a lot going on on top of the whole fake marriage thing. Too many subplots. It all felt kinda of rushed and although it came together in the end, I think this book could have benefited from cutting one or two of them out so that the others could have been more fleshed out. 

Anyway, phew this was longer than I thought it would be lol. I had a lot of thoughts apparently. I wanted this to go a different direction that it went. In all honesty I want to give this a 2, but I don’t think that’s fair because a lot of it was personal preference. I think?? I don’t know, man. I’m gonna give it a 2.5 and round up to 3 for the weird dialogue and the pacing.

Catarina Freitas

Not my favourite in the series so far but i still enjoyed it

Missy Zuber 

** spoiler alert **
           I was so looking forward to this book when I read the preview, but I was left slightly disappointed.

Andrew set off warning bells early on.

Mica's real name through me off since it's not written correctly. Russians traditionally have a first, patronymic and last name. No middle names.

Can't authors find another way to carry a story other than a pregnancy? That ruined it a bit. Mica didn't want kids, they use no protection and poof, baby.

kayla

1.3 at best. Felt like it was written by a 15 year old on Wattpad.

Katie Dobay

I am such a simp for Mica. The story line was a hockey romance with a dash mafia and that new movie fresh on hulu but less cannibal-y. I love marriage of convenience. I felt like this book hit SO MANY TROPES. Pregnancy, afraid of marriage and pregnancy, 'who touched you?', strangers to friends to lovers to soulmates, mafia, sports romance, and marriage of convenience. This book constantly tickled my fancy BUTTTTT the only thing that caused me not to hit 5 stars was the MFC Charlie was borderline emotionally cheating without realizing it but it pissed me off SO BADLY, my poor husband had to listen about it alot.

Valeria 

Empezamos bien, pero después se tornó demasiado paque y aburrido 

stephanie archer 

so close to being perfection,,,,then the fucking pregnancy trope 🤮

window

** spoiler alert **
           Maybe I should have dipped in and out of this series with the first book I read (Home Game). Book 1 was just OK to me and this one....whoa. 

This was a total kitchen sink plot. It was all just way too much in one story. Spoilers aplenty - read on at your own risk.

Fake marriage, not one but two mobs, unplanned pregnancy, serial killer neighbor with secret basement prison, corrupt cops. I may have missed an element or two.

So first off, the fake marriage. This can be OK in a contemporary though for me, this trope in a modern setting often strains credibility. However this was ridiculous. The bad boy player with ties to the Russian mob needs to get married to demonstrate he’s a “family man” and has settled down - um ok. 

But then you have Charlie, the h, who owes the Japanese mob money for her bother’s debts (a brother who plays no role in this book, conveniently tucked away in prison). So now 2 mobs + fake marriage. 

Then you have the neighbor Andrew who gives off total creep vibes the entire book and turns out to be a serial killer? And then there’s Mika’s backstory involving wealthy Russian family and his nanny who died having his father’s baby. This leads him to never ever want kids (no mention of adoption though). 

Despite that, he has sex with the fake wife multiple times with no protection and bam, unplanned pregnancy, which causes Big Problems in their fake marriage. Saw that one coming a mile away. I mean dude, if you are 100% dead-set on not fathering children, you should at least wrap it up. 

Oh and then there was the crooked cop - funny how in the big city of Vancouver, it was always this same detective who showed up every time there was a break-in or vandalism at the house (why a detective and never just a regular cop?). Despite this guy being loaded and living in a rich neighborhood, the cops treated him like a scumbag but in reality, there would have been patrols in the area after the first few incidents. And also since Mika is a multi millionaire, why wouldn’t he have upgraded the security system, hired security personnel, etc? Nope, instead he got a guard dog. 

And Charlie winds up in Andrew’s basement of horrors at the end of the book.