i liked this book just fine, but i do think it went on for a little too long. i feel like it could've been 20% shorter and still achieved what it set out to do but it was fun and pretty quick and i'd definitely read from this author again!! probably a 2.75 star rating but i'd round it up to a three because i enjoyed the dynamics between the characters -- they were sweet and unlike most sports romances, it didn't feel toxic or like the guy was a mjor douchebag -- bonus points for that!

3.5⭐️

I loved, loved, loved Nik and Izzy’s story, but I struggled with the pacing. This book was SO LONG and I feel like a lot could have been cut out to help with the flow of their romance. It was fun seeing the rest of the Callahan family and the spice was top notch, but overall, I had higher expectations for this series finale.

The book is fun for the first half with the premise. There's fun tension and flirtation and banter and the characters are very sweet to each other. I love the book description, but it does lose some of the tension a little more than halfway through the book. I do love the main characters and how aware they are and how they work on being better for each other. Overall, a fun and lovely book that makes me. yearn for something more when I look at my own romantic relationships. This book reminds me not to settle!

Isabelle comes from a big happy family filled with successful people. All of them are excellent athletes and she is an excellent volleyball player. Now that she is coming close to the end of college she is struggling to figure out what comes next. Nik gets kicked out of college and ends up finding his place at Isabelle’s college. He has a journey finding his place on the hockey team while dealing with family issues. Can their secret summer fling turn into forever love or will they discover that there are too many stressors keeping them apart?

Isabelle was a good character with interesting layers. I like that she is struggling with her place on the volleyball team. Her growth curve as she learns how to balance everything on her plate was really good. When she finally talks to her family about her struggles, I thought it had a good emotional punch. Nik’s relationship with his family was sad. He has an abusive father, distant mother and manipulative grandfather with no one to love and support him for who he is. The fact that his dad is a famous Russian hockey player put a lot of pressure one him. When Nik finally stands up for himself and tells everyone what he wants, I was so happy. I felt like he had earned all of it. The author takes the time to let Isabelle and Nik fall in love and learn about each other. There are lots of side characters. They all add to the story. The author gives an excellent epilogue that is worth the read.

The one thing that frustrated me was that Nik got kicked out of college for a drugs. The author glossed over that. I was willing to accept that because the drugs weren’t Nik’s (that’s not a spoiler because it is the first this the reader learns). Then there are his former team mates. I had expected them to support him and stay friendly. I felt like that storyline was a missed opportunity that could have added so much to Nik’s story.

This is a contemporary college romance. It is a grumpy/sunshine, second chance romance between two successful, driven college students. It is a really satisfying read. I will read more from this author in the future.

Look, this book is so dang good. I love Nik and his back story broke my heart. I love Izzy and her present situation makes me mad because she is goodness. I love Nik and Izzy together way more than I should! That's the feeling I always want from my books. I want to go read every Grace Reilly book if they are this good!

I have really enjoyed this series as a whole so far! We saw glimpses of Nikolair and Izzy in the previous books so I was excited for their story

I really loved Nikolai and how Grace represented his mental health. And when he calls Izzy ‘my sunshine girl’ I swooned every time. Their relationship had alot of cute elements and steammmm. The support they have for one another and the discovery they go through was really sweet.

I did have a tough time getting through some of this one which is unusual for me, but it felt very long with very little happening in some parts. It was hard to stay locked in on their characters when I thought they had so much potential.

Tropes:
- Sports Romance
- Hockey Player x Volleyball Player
- College Romance
- Brother’s Rival
- Secret Relationship

Thank you to Grace, VPR, & Net Galley for the early read!

This book is adorable! I loved the found family, the romance, the VOLLEYBALL (especially the way it lines up with my experiences as a volleyball player). It is enjoyable and I can see this book as a 3.5 star book. I love when books portray men's mental health in a positive light and getting help for it and I love when books portray supportive couples.

An aspect I didn't quite get was that this wasn't the first book in the series, but all the family aspects and resulting couplings were explained, and not too hard to follow, but I do feel like I missed out and would've enjoyed it more had I read the others first. But that is not the fault of this book, just that I read out of order.

Thank you, Grace Reilly for allowing me to read your ARC. It brought me some joy from a sport I don't really get to play anymore.

I loved the relationship between Nikolai and Isabella, such a healthy one and cute.

Tropes: Summer fling, stranger to lovers, secret relationship, brothers rivalry, forced proximity, hockey romance
spice:🌶️🌶️🌶️

Isabella is the selfless extrovert girl and baby of the family. Nikolai who is an introvert and felt alone most of his life.

About 50% of the book is good with short and cute chapters , but it went downfall pretty quick. The book was too long and so many unnecessary scenes without relation to the plot. The relation between Izzy & Nik felt more of lust and didn’t have that spark.

What I loved is Nikolai prioritising his mental health before jumping in a forever with Izzy.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

Ok I liked this one but I didn’t love it. It didn’t stand out in the huge world of hockey romance to me.

So starting with the fact that they already have a relationship…this is a personal thing for me in a book. I really like to be able to read about when they meet and how they get to know each other and all that cutesy stuff. It’s some of my favorite parts and we got none of that.

I also felt like this was so much longer than it needed to be. It probably could have been half as long and been just as good if not better because there wasn’t unnecessary fluff in it.

I did end up liking Nik and Izzy though as characters and as a couple and it was great to see their development throughout.

All in all 3/5 stars.

Love this one! It was such a fun ending to this series! I loved the tension - the spice was soo good!

DNF
This book was about spoiled, rich collegiate jocks. I read about 30% and just couldn't move on from there.

★★★★★ (5+/5)
🌶🌶 (2/5

When i started this book i had a feeling it would be a 5 star, but when i finished i was so sad the book was over because it was amazing.

Everything about this book is perfection. The plotline is interesting and fun, the characters are loveable and complex, the relationships are deep and understandable, the writing is magnificent and fitting and the spice was original and well-timed.

I think this book portays mental health flawlessly, i genually have no comment, i have never seen a book be so accurate about how it feels to have parental issues, the book made you feel what the characters were dealing with, you felt for them and you cared about them.

The relationship of the main characters was exceptional. I could point a perfect relationship dynamic it would be them. They had chemistry and knew how to talk to each other, they were perfect.

I wish i could read this book all over again, seeing the cameos of the main characters of the other books in the series always makes me happy and i always say makes the whole story come togather well and seem real. I dont really know what else to say this book deserves more than 5 stars and i think everyone should read it, 200% recomended.

This was such such a good book! grace never fails to make me fall in love with the characters and the story (she even makes me love the conflicts)
4,75 from me

Nik & Izzy’s story was a good ride. It had everything you could want in a book. A good one to read over a weekend. Loved it!!

4.75⭐️ 3🌶️

ARC Review:
This book is so cute and has all the feel good feelings!
Nik and Izzy met one summer and started hooking up with no strings attached. But when he moves to McKee to play hockey, there’s no denying there chemistry now.

At first they are hiding from her brother who’s on the same team and has given a very extensive warning about him going for Izzy. But after awhile the hiding and random hookups can’t be tamed anymore and they both decide for more. But that takes Nik opening up about his past. And he learns he’s not the monster after all.

I love Nikolai and Isabelle. They are a cute couple. The way he takes such good care of her and how she just patiently waits for him. She nurtures and helps him through his panic attacks. Is the healing piece between him and his mom. Her family is amazing for welcoming him in open arms.

I couldn’t get enough of this book and wish it wasn’t the final one in this series!

Pros
- like the backstory and characterization
- like the chemisty
- the perfect amount of spice
- lots of sex scenes which I like

Cons
- dragged a bit in the beginning and middle
- anal sex that’s completely unprepped for, which I get is unsexy but randomly having anal sex one night is so unrealistic that it pulled me out of the story for a minute

If you’re looking for cute and fluffy this is it.

Nik was the perfect brooding book boyfriend, with a refreshing focus on his mental health, which is different from the standard hockey player cookie cutter.

Isabelle was sweet, patient, and understanding, so there wasn’t much relationship angst which I would have enjoyed more.

Isobel and Nikolai reconnect after a whirlwind summer romance. They didn’t expect to see each other again, but Nik quickly realizes that won’t be the case, thanks to a school transfer. He also knows he won’t be able to keep the distance he promised himself.

My only negative was this book was longer than it should have been.

**Tropes:**
- Established Relationship
- Brother’s Rival
- Non-toxic Relationship
- Open Door
- Secret Relationship
- He Falls Harder
- Tortured Soul MMC
- Family Bonds

#BookReview #SportsRomance #TorturedHero #BookBoyfriend #RomanceBooks #MentalHealth #RomanceTropes #MustRead

First of all, A huge thank you to NetGalley and the respective publisher for this Arc in exchange for my honest review.
This was a such a cute, heartwarming and fluffy romance. I have lately been into Sports Romances a lot more than before and this ARC came at the right time.
The story is about Nikolai and Isabelle who hooked up for the summer. But they are both aware that is the extent of it and Nikolai is Isabelle’s brother’s rival so they cannot make it into anything else. But is that reason enough to stop there?

I felt like this book was a 100-150 pages too long. We could have still had the same story without some unnecessary scenes.
However, I did enjoy the book for how easy it was to follow and that it was free of misunderstandings and miscommunications for the most part. Overall, it was fun to read. Spice was good too. Nothing too extraordinary but a cute sports romance book.

Thank you Avon, Netgalley, and Valentine PR for the review copy.

Nikolai and Isabelle have a summer fling but it ends when they return to their respective colleges, seeing as Nikolai is Izzy’s brother’s hockey rival and that would not go over well. But an incident goes down and suddenly Nik is at the same school as Izzy, so instead of leaving the past behind they sneak around their relationship to avoid any brotherly interventions. They find that their feelings are much stronger than just physical, but being together isn’t completely simple and straightforward either. Families meddling, coaches expectations, and their future careers are on the line as the book unfolds.

I played volleyball from fourth grade through senior year of high school, plus some adult sand volleyball leagues after grad school, so needless to say I was pumped for a romance with a volleyball player FMC. I haven’t read any of the other sports romances in this series, but you don’t need to as this can be read as a standalone. If you are a fan of Icebreaker, I think you will like this book as it has a strong college hockey presence with a pinch more emotion and backstory for the characters. This book could have been 100 pages shorter and still been as emotional, without as many “on again, off again” moments. With that said, it was a very spicy sports romance with two firecracker main characters figuring out how to love each other.

3.5 stars

This story held a lot more angst than I expected. Nikolai has had a rough life filled with too much (mostly negative) attention for the first half, and no attention whatsoever after that. Izzy shows so much maturity and compassion when it comes to Nik’s emotional blocks, considering she grew up in a supportive and loving family that always shows up for each other.

Even with the great family Izzy has, she has insecurities too. It’s only natural with three older brothers who excel at all that they do. Izzy loves them all dearly and never wants to make anyone feel bad by speaking up about what she needs so her insecurities only grow. Nik sees this and does all he can to bolster her. Nik and Izzy are amazing together, I love their connection.

Unfortunately, this book suffered from the same pacing issues as the previous book. It was also longer than it needed to be. Since I enjoy the emotions and storyline this author writes I will continue to read her stories…for now. She’s still a relatively new published author and I expect she will hone her craft the more she writes.