On the Edge of Scandal Snow & Ice Games

Surprise, surprise - I am reading another Tamsen Parker book. What can I say? I'm addicted, and Tamsen fills the prescription. Oh man, oh man. Tamsen loves her taboos, and she doesn't let us down with a Mentor-Mentee relationship (well, coach and team member if you want to get really picky). Throw in a splash of angst with all the ooey gooey romance, and you've got yourself a home run (wrong sport, but you get the point). This Snow and Ice Games book is all about HOCKEY. As a Canadian, I approve! Finally a book that I will understand all the sports terms and be able to identify if Tamsen knows her stuff or is just really good at making up sports terms! Woo hoo! Bronwyn and Ash are another great duo. I have never been so happy in my life to see a couple break up in a piece of literature - because Brody drove me insane. Coming from a formal athlete, I HATED IT when male athletes put down us female athletes. Brody drove me up the wall and made me hate him, which might be one of the cons of this book? I wish I had reasons to like Brody, but I really didn't. I understood where he was coming from, but he just fell flat. Maybe one day Tamsen will give him a chance for redemption in another novel? I loved Bronwyn - she is a strong woman who isn't afraid to give a piece of her mind. I was so happy and proud of a certain moment in this novel, because honestly I was rooting for team Bronwyn the whole time. There were some points in this novel where I was a little...uneasy. Not with the content, but imagining it actually happening. Lying down and sleeping with your coach? It was consensual, but it seemed kinda...weird? I can see it happening, but at the same time it just seemed odd to me. Does this actually happen? I'm from a small town, so things like this rarely happen (the coaches are normally double the age of any of the participants) around my area. Maybe it's just my past experience clouding my vision. I will say - this book is hot. It's steamy. It's sensual. It's racy. It's everything you want in an erotic romance and more. Okay, maybe it's not EVERYTHING (this isn't Tamsen's BDSM series, it's pretty calm), but it's still a quality romance novel (with some R rated scenes). I even felt my heart jump a few times thinking about how sweet these two are (and how they finally get together). I like this series a lot more than a lot of the romances I used to read. The Snow and Ice Games just kinda click. They are sweet, short and sexy. Tamsen doesn't put in useless information, she doesn't lead you astray and she doesn't make you think to hard (Side note: don't you hate those romance books that throw in some "Inception" like plot but don't follow through with them?). Tamsen is the queen of easy, sexy reads! And probably the most important: her books aren't the same thing over and over. I respect Tamsen so much (and I've said this in other reviews) on how she grows as an author. Some romance authors stick to the same story line over and over and over and over... It gets excessive. Tamsen might use the same premise (romance story, erotic, a little taboo) but she changes up the characters (M/M, F/F, M/F, etc), the plot lines (dramatic storytelling vs just a romance) and how steamy these books go, and so on. These books are all different and have their own identity, which is SO NICE TO SEE. I'm tired of reading the same book by the same author over and over again! Overall, it's another hit for me. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out which book is my fave for far. I'll have to wait until I read all five to actually put them in an order of how much I enjoyed them, because the first three are all fighting for top spot and rotate depending on my mood (or the day). Five out of five stars. I received an electronic copy through Tamsen Parker and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Finally, the hockey romance! I’ve read a lot of hockey romances, but this is the first, I think, that had a female hockey player. This is the third in the Snow & Ice Games series, but each can be read as a standalone. Bronwyn is a college hockey player who’s made it on to the Olympics team for US women’s hockey, and Ash is the team coach. Though they’re at different colleges, women’s hockey is a small enough world that they are each familiar with each other, plus they’re both at colleges in the Boston area. When Bronwyn and her boyfriend break up in an incredibly public and messy way, Ash fears that it will tank her performance, and that of the team. So, naturally, he offers to be her distraction, to predictable results. “’I’ll be your anchor. I’ll fill the gaps. If you feel like calling Brody, call me instead. If you usually eat lunch with him, I’ll meet up with you. There must be a hundred things you do every day that make you think of him. Don’t think of him, think of . . .’ Me. Think of me. ‘Uh, hockey.’ She smiles at me, a funny twisted-up thing that makes me think she’s trying not to laugh. Which is fine. She could totally laugh at me and I wouldn’t care. ‘So, you’re going to be the nicotine gum to my Brody cigarette?’ Whatever you do, do not think of being in her mouth. For fuck’s sake, I may have to move this clipboard lower if I get any more filthy ideas. But yeah, she’s got the gist. ‘Yep. Sure am.’” First off – this is a taboo romance. Ash is the coach and Bronwyn is one of his players, so immediately there’s the issue of a power imbalance. There’s definite lines crossed, which may prove to be too squicky for some readers. While normally I’m not a fan of power imbalances like this, I think it was handled well enough that while I was aware of it, it was enough in the background that I could enjoy the romance part. One of the things that helped is that they’re not that far apart in age – Ash is in his late twenties and Bronwyn is in her early twenties. The thing that didn’t help is that it felt like Bronwyn acted so much younger than her actual age, and Ash older. So, the thing that gets them together in a way that starts their relationship is that Ash offers to be a distraction from Brody – if Bronwyn wants to call Brody, she should call him, etc. This ends up with her calling him and coming over to his room in the middle of the night to cuddle… because she can’t sleep by herself. Also, their big breakup is spurred by Ash denying that he’s having inappropriate relations with anyone on his team, which, you know, she agrees is the only course of action he could take, because, yeah, this is hella inappropriate. Plus, Brody, Bronwyn’s boyfriend, was such an awful person and I don’t really understand why she stuck with him for so long, especially since she seems to rebound so quickly from him. It really made me wonder – I mean, obviously, Brody was no prince, but seriously, she went from one relationship to another, so it really made me question her judgment and maturity. “Ash is really strong. Not in the could-bench-press-me way Brody was, but in a quieter way. I don’t think I’d be able to dedicate my life to helping people get better at something I used to love but could no longer do. How is he not bitter as fuck? I would be. I don’t even think there’d be anything wrong with that.” It’s not like Ash doesn’t screw up, himself. Though he seems mostly able to separate his personal and professional interactions with Bronwyn, he does almost nearly blow it at one point. I especially loved his back story and that he suffered from chronic pain. It gave him a good reason for being such a young coach, and I admired his maturity and his love for the sport, especially in terms of women’s hockey versus men’s hockey. It feels, sometimes, like the physical consequences of playing high impact sports are not very well addressed in romances – and I get it, it can be a downer – but I thought this was done in such a masterful way to lend a lot of depth to the story. Overall, though I may have had some issues with the trope, I did really enjoy this book. I hope Ms. Parker writes more women’s hockey books in the future! I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.