This is a love story but also one of dealing with loss the scars left as the result of a difficult and loveless childhood. Mitch is a star hockey player for the Washington NHL team. He’s huge and has some serious anger management issues that have landed him is a 5 week suspension and a required “image improvement” role as the asnt manager for a youth hockey team. Andi is a critical care nurse who has moved home to DC to become the guardian of her 11 year old brother after their parents are killed in a car accident. While she often exhausted and overwhelmed by her new role, AndI is an optimist at heart, Andi’s brother is a gifted player on the youth hockey team that Mitch coaches. Mitch has abandonment and anger issues, Andi is all about family and finding things to be thankful for. They clash and then then the both feel a romantic spark. Will these two very different people help each other find love???

‘Desire or Defense’ by Leah Brunner was a swoony, emotional slow burn, and I really loved it. The audiobook, narrated by Dane Anderson and Alex Picard, was amazing. Definitely recommend!


𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘈𝘙𝘊 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘣𝘺 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘳 (𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬-𝘺𝘰𝘶!). 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯.

Audio listener
Mitch "The Machine" Anderson is the meanest, least social DC Eagle in the NHL franchise. He's from Wisconsin and has endured being abandoned by his mother and blamed by his father for making him unhappy by leaving him, then having his drunk father arrested for drug dealing and living with his grandfather in lieu of ending up in foster care, he must attend anger management therapy and (his agent's idea) coach youth hockey to improve his image. Also he has to show up to his therapist and talk about his past.
Andie Downsby, an ICU nurse, lost both of her loving parents in a horrific auto accident nine months earlier and became the legal guardian of her much younger brother. Coincidentally,
11-year-old Noah plays on the team Mitch is coaching. Andie comes to practice, sees him yelling at the kids, and marches onto the ice to give him a piece of her mind.
Mitch start giving private lesson to Noah and Andie see a different side to Mitch and see them together other mom start to get jealous and start rumors and Andie see how the dirty side of fame and being with someone.
Love the rom com and tragedy can bring three people together and grieve and find happiness together

This was fun but less for the romance, I loved the leads and the relationship and real discussion of grief and being famliy was great.

This was so cute!!!!

Desire or Defense is grumpy x sunshine perfection! What happens when a gruff hockey player fresh on the heels of a suspension lands himself as the coach for a peewee league of hot headed hockey players? He obviously looses his cool - what he doesn’t expect is for the woman he didn’t know he needed to stomp onto the ice and into his heart - changing his life forever!

Full of love, loss, found family, hockey, friendship and swoon worthy romance - Defense or Desire is a fantastic read!

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the advanced copy!

Defense of Desire by Leah Brunner is a fun filled sweet, clean, rom-com. Mitch and Andie have excellent chemistry that gets better as the story progresses. I love the banter and tension between these two! I love how Andie cares for her brother, Noah, and Mitch becomes a friend to them both. I enjoyed how Mitch learn to come to terms with his past, his anger issues, and his need for genuine friends. It was nice seeing him open up to his team and taking responsibility for his own actions and feelings. Andie is a feisty nurse who balances out Mitch’s isolated grumpiness. There is more language than I felt was necessary for these characters, but their story was sweet and enjoyable.
I had the additional pleasure of listening to a narrated copy by Dane Anderson and Alex Picard.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley and all opinions expressed are solely own, freely given.

A romance reader and hockey fan, I've always got an ear out for hockey romances - especially if they're the start to a new series.

I liked narrators Dane Anderson and Alex Picard. Mitch "the Machine" Anderson is a ridiculous name but I'm here for it.

Unfortunately this one didn't really draw me in. A fifth of the way in, there's been so little hockey or hockey talk (Mitch is suspended, but coaching, and still very much on a team). There's also been minimal interaction or chemistry between the two leads.

I'm not a fan of the language either, which keeps taking me out of the story. I'm aware this isn't the only author who says "bemused" when she means "amused" (not puzzled). But why a positive comment about Amazon subscribe and save? Why no comment when a friend throws out a perfectly good sandwich (even if we're ignoring the needless food waste, isn't parenting on a single salary tough)? Also didn't appreciate saying men are "acting like teenage girls" as if it's a bad thing, calling kids "little savages," or saying food's going to go "straight to my thighs." None of these comments are for me, and while I'd just ignore this many in an entire book, they seem too frequent for me to get past, and there's no zero chemistry or steam or relationship buildup to distract me from them/keep me reading.

DNF 21%

Title: "Desire or Defense”

Ranting: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for one of my favorite romances of the year! I just dove headfirst into the ice-cold world of "Desire or Defense" by Leah Brunner and what a ride! 🏒❤️

First off, let me just say, that I read this as an audiobook and OMFG IT WAS PERFECTION. For real, Mitch's narrator had one of the deepest voices I've ever heard. The whole experience felt so immersive and that helped me to really connect with some of these characters

With some of my favorite tropes ever, Desire or Defense is a grumpy X sunshine, slow-burn hockey romance full of hilarious moments and the best kind of rom-com vibes.

if you're a sucker for a rugged, brooding hockey player who accidentally fell for a tiny but fiercely protective nurse, then this audiobook is your ticket to heaven. Trust me guys, I couldn't put my phone down while listening to this.

Mitch and Andie's relationship was spool cute. From their first (disastrous but yet very entertaining) first encounter on the ice, I was absolutely hooked! I swear that every interaction between them had me grinning from ear to ear.

I absolutely recommend this book/audiobook. If, like me, you're also into sports romance with a dash of slow-burn this is simply the perfect read for you. 💋🏒❤️

Desire or Defense was such an excellent audiobook! Hockey romcom girlies this one is for you and I highly recommend listening to it! It was perfect for listening to while walking, puzzling, cross stitching, and making boring chores fun!

Always love a good hockey rom-com! Loved the spin on this with the main character taking care of her younger brother. Fun to listen to with the two narrators!

DNF. The male narrator was too monotone when he played the main character, which was weird because he was fine when he played other characters. Unfortunate.

Read this if you enjoy:
❤️ grumpy sunshine
❤️ opposites attract
❤️ famous + non famous MCs
❤️ hockey romance
❤️ swoony kisses and chemistry

This was a light and fun, faced paced romance about Andie, a twenty six year old woman taking care of her preteen brother and the surly suspended pro hockey player Mitch who ends up volunteering his time as an assistant coach during his time away from the ice. These two butt heads and have fabulous chemistry from the very start. Their relationship was so sweet, as was the development of the relationship between Mitch and Andie’s little brother Noah. Mitch’s relationship with his teammates was so fun to read and added a lot of humor to this entertaining story. The therapy scenes were beautifully written and added depth to the character development and growth throughout the course of the story. While the story had its serious and heart touching moments, it kept me laughing and smiling often as well. Don’t even get me started on the first audiobook Mitch tries to listen to. 😂

Overall, I loved it and couldn’t put it down! I can’t wait to read more in this series.

Many thanks to Netgalley for an advanced audiobook copy of this story. All thoughts are my own.

Content: parental abandonment, grief, brief mention of past alcohol and drug abuse

Sweet closed door romcom. I have never read any of Leah Brunner’s books before but I got this one on NetGalley as an audiobook. My thoughts are my own. I enjoyed getting to see the characters progress and work through their struggles together and I loved the dynamic between Mitch and Noah. I will be checking out other books by this author in the future.

I have followed this author for a while since I have been seeing the book on BookTok. I loved the audiobook and now need to read all her others that way too! I love sports romances and this one is on the top of my list.

Overall, I enjoyed the low angst, closed-door, grumpy/sunshine romance that was Desire and Defense.

Unfortunately, I listened to the audiobook version, and I didn't consistently love the narration. Looking back, I think I would have enjoyed the story more had I read it instead. I don't want to pan either the print or audio version of this title—I can think of so many folks who regularly approach me for book suggestions who would love this book! I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to any of them.

That being said, I found the narration occasionally off-putting, particularly when it came to Mitch's character. It's not that I disliked the narrator's voice; it's just that I think he was the wrong choice for this book. His tone and inflection seemed consistently off, like he should have been narrating a noir novel instead (and I would admittedly love to listen to this guy narrate a noir novel). And I literally cringed when he voiced other characters, particularly other male characters, most particularly his agent.

Not to lay all of my misgivings at the male narrator's feet, I also found the female narrator occasionally grating, but in the oposite direction. While Mitch's narration came across as too hard-boiled, Andie's often came across as too over-the-top emotional. Too breathy, perhaps? And I get that we're dealing with a grumpy/sunshine trope here, but the juxtaposition of the two narration styles was just a miss for me.

Three stars still, though, because I did actually like the novel. I appreciated the positive depiction of therapy, the truly adult levels of communication, the sweet relationship between Mitch and Andie's little brother Josh, and Mitch's character growth as he began to heal from his childhood trauma. This is one of those books that I should maybe re-read down the road to see if I want to adjust my rating. Until then, I will include it in my romance recommendations for anybody who's looking for a sweet read.

[I received an ARC of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.]

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Dreamscape media and the author for this arc!

First off I really loved this book! It was such a fun read that kept my attention at all times!

The audio narrators in this book were superb! I really liked that there was dual narration. Both narrators did such a good job narrating the different characters. I loved listening to them!

I absolutely loved Andie and Mitch. They were both such funny and relatable main characters. Andie was such a good sister which I really admired. She really just wanted the best for her little brother Noah. Mitch was such a grumpy but funny mc! I really loved how he just wanted to be the best version of himself for Andie!🥹 I also liked how Andie and Mitch went from disagreeing (like screaming at each other) to bantering to flirting! 😂

Also I just had to mention this but my fav funniest scene about this book was Mitch trying to relax by taking a bubble bath and listening to a hockey romance audiobook! It was hilarious!😂

I would definitely recommend this as a perfect closed door sports romance for those looking for cleaner alternatives for hockey romances, but still with all the tension! 🏒🧊

This was a very cute hockey romance! It was low on the drama, no third act breakup (not a real one anyways), and low on the spice. The plot was low impact, but this is a great book to read if you want something light and sports related. Noah was super cute, I love his blossoming relationship with his sister, Andie. And Mitch was a really cute cinnamon-roll hero, working through past demons. This is not an extra spicy, hockey romance, but a cute story with a happy ending to get you through a blasé day.

This one started a little slow for me and I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy, but ended up really liking it.

Andie and Mitch both had a lot of their own issues to deal with. And was romance the best idea now? Probably not. Their banter was stellar!

But this hockey, grumpy sunshine was so good! Andie's brother was a delightful bonus. And the hockey teammates were so much fun.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this ALC in exchange for my honest review.

This was overall a cute story that did delve into some serious topics such as grief and substance abuse (although mildly). It follows bad boy professional hockey player Mitch who gets benched and has to coach a kid’s local hockey team to boost his image. One of the kids on this team has lost both of his parents and his sister Andi has become his guardian. She’s doing everything she can to help normalize Noah’s life again and takes up Mitch’s offer of private coaching for Noah. Feelings and attractions blossom in this clean romance with a HEA. The audiobook was well done and I enjoyed the narrators.

🎧⭐⭐⭐⭐ Warm and Heartfelt!

'Desire or Defense' by Leah Brunner, narrated by Alex Picard & Dane Anderson, is a fantastic audiobook that delivers an engaging enemies-to-lovers hockey romance. The narrators bring the story to life with compelling performances, immersing the listeners in intense emotions and unexpected connections.

While the storyline doesn't delve into spicy moments, it compensates with a warm and fuzzy approach that tugs at the heartstrings. The suspended defenseman with a temper and the fiery spitfire create a dynamic that keeps you invested throughout the narrative. Their interactions are both passionate and endearing, making you root for their eventual union.

Alex Picard & Dane Anderson's narration adds depth to the characters, revealing their vulnerabilities and strengths. Their ability to convey the emotions and chemistry between the characters is commendable, making it easy to become emotionally invested in the story.

As the first book of the 'Hooked on a Feeling' series, 'Desire or Defense' sets a promising tone for the series to come. While it might lack the spice some readers seek, it more than compensates with its heartwarming moments and well-crafted characters.

Overall, if you're in the mood for an enemies-to-lovers romance with fantastic narration that warms your heart, 'Desire or Defense' is a perfect choice.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.