This is the first hockey romance book I've had the pleasure of reading. Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved how this was a sports romance, rivals to lovers and second chances. I enjoyed how the author entertwined both Natalie and Darcy in present day (rivals) to past secret lovers and teammates in college. Darcy, a senior in college and the hockey team captain enters her last year in college hockey before going to the professionals and in comes a freshman, Natalie, who is as cocky as the next hockey player, thinking she deserves an automatic spot in the starting line up. Darcy and Natalie instantly click, despite the age difference but they keep it a secret until the end of the season... or so Natalie thought. Ten years later, Darcy is a sport broadcaster for the Winter Olympics and her boss decides that Natalie would be the best co-host for her segment.

With a little flirting, a lot of sports being learned by the both of them and more chemistry forming every day, Natalie and Darcy are both guarding their hearts because they don't want to get heartbroken like they did some odd years ago. Will they each put the past in the past or will Darcy choose her career yet again? Natalie isn't innocent in the breaking of each other's hearts either. She is still salty she got cut from the U.S.A team for the olympics. But, will Darcy rub her Gold medals in her face from Team Canada.

The perfect amount of romance in this romantic-comedy that will have you smiling, laughing and crying at the same time.

Thank you so much to Kate Cochrane and Harlequin for the ARC copy of Wake Up, Nat & Darcy!

Honestly, this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The tropes - exes/rivals to lovers, forced proximity, fake flirting for publicity - were an excellent formula for me. There was a lot to this I enjoyed. Unfortunately, a lot of it wasn't done in a way that clicked well with my brain.

On the good side, I really enjoyed the honest and real conflicts that Natalie and Darcy had both in college and in the present day. Their motivations were legitimate, and believable characters are extremely important to me in my books. The book was also a pretty easy read, which is what I prefer in a lighter romance.

Conversely, there were a lot of things that didn't work well for me. The perspectives were confusing and occasionally appeared to flip mid-chapter, which wasn't helped by Nat and Darcy having extremely similar narrative voices. I was not too fond of the pacing, which felt like it went from zero to one hundred to fifty in about five pages. There wasn't much tension, and I felt the third-act conflict was a little forced. Something that's more a me thing was that I was disappointed we didn't learn more about the winter sports they discussed. It felt very surface-level, like a plot device, instead of being used to enrich the story.

I wish I had more positive things to say, as overall I wouldn't say it was a bad story, but it didn't click well with my brain. That said, I do think I'll plan to read future books by Kate as I don't think it's a bad showing for a debut author, and I crave more sapphic relationships that don't shy away from a bit of spice. It's an important niche, and I would be remiss to say that Kate is doing anything wrong. There is just room to grow.

Thank you again so much for the ARC. Wake Up, Nat & Darcy is out on November 12th, and I'd encourage you to give it a try to see if you agree with my thoughts!

Finally a Great sapphic hockey romance!! Former lovers & hockey rivals have to work together to cover the Olympic Games on a morning show. The banter was great between the two FMCs. 10/10 recommend checking out if you like a good Rivals-to-Lovers romance.

This book is incredibly funny and comforting. It has all my favorite tropes: second chance, “hate” to love, forced proximity… I mean, perfection. And the premises are successfully executed. Nat e Darcy are so cute together, I swoon for them. I ship them so hard! I also appreciated the sporting themes, very interesting.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

First, I would like to thank NetGalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Where to start… I am a big hockey fan, and this book has me looking up when the PWHL season starts so I can watch the games! Speaking of which, it was WEIRD that both main characters careers were previously the Olympics, but it doesn’t mention any pro leagues?! And even if Nat had been cut from the Olympics, she’d still be good enough to play pro as the last one cut. The whole system made no sense. A little frustrating, but whatever.

Darcy, the nepo baby, refuses to acknowledge that, regardless of her hard work, her family name comes with obvious perks. But whatever. I found her annoying. I loved Natalie, but I also recognize a walking red flag when I see one. What can I say, red is my favorite color. Overall, the relationship felt a bit toxic.

Everything I have said so far was a negative, but I really did enjoy the book. It was cute and fun, and I liked the insight into the different sports. Total rating was a 3.75/5.

Finally, a sapphic ice hockey romance! And this didn’t disappoint. Super cute, a combo of second-chance, enemies-to-lovers, and forced proximity between two has-been gold medalists who started as team members and became bitter rivals before getting paired up for News team coverage of the Winter Olympic Games. The banter was on point, the chemistry was fantastic, and I loved their fierce competitiveness in the hilarious “learning to other winter sports” segments. There was a little spice, nicely done, and I loved all the sexual tension leading up to it.

I was briefly thrown in a couple of places where the close POV things mentioned things the character didn’t know, but other than that it was a delightful book from start to finish.

I received an advanced copy from the publisher and am voluntarily leaving this review.

This was such a fun little romp! If you are craving Olympics related content still this book will be right up your alley. The banter between the two main characters is great and the author does a wonderful job of executing enemies to lovers. As a connoisseur of hockey romance I’m honestly shocked that this is the second sapphic hockey romance I’ve read. I hope that lots of folks pick up this book so that the genre can grow. However, both of the MCs are retired players so there isn’t much on page playing of hockey but the hockey culture is definitely there. I’m excited to see whatever this author puts out next, hopefully it’ll be more sapphic hockey romance.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was a struggle. The animosity between Nat and Darcy the first half of the book had me completely questioning how the author was going to spin this around and make them not only like each other but fall in love.

The fighting and arguing was so childish, especially in at a job, they would be fired so quickly.

Premise of the book was unique, fun and cute, but the characters made me struggle to get into their relationship.

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of his book from Harlequin publishing through NetGalley. Thoughts and feelings are my ow.
I love a good sapphic romance and I also really enjoy a sports romance. I can't say is the sports content is accurate but I really enjoyed this spin on a sports romance. A lot of sports romance are focused on male athletes in their prime, so I really enjoyed the perspective of an athlete who is female and facing a retirement from something she loves. I really enjoyed the banter and the dual POV. Anymore-- I feel like I NEED a dual POV to really enjoy a romance book. Overall, I enjoyed this story. The characters were likable and had realistic growth. The mis-communication trope was NOT overdone. It was just a fun read and I finished in just a few sittings.

This was a fun read! If you want a sapphic love story about hockey this is the book for you. I’m a big fan of hockey so I really enjoyed this book and felt along for the ride of their love story. What you see is what you get with this book and I enjoyed it.

This was such a cute and fun concept! I love sport romances and even better when they're queer. Unfortunately, this had quite a dense middle and the alternating POVs struggled with Nat and Darcy not having distinct enough voices. There were still fun bits, though and that plus the concept still pushes it to a solid 3 stars.

This novel is for true fans of enemies to lovers as rivalry is a main plot point. I love a take on the real life US Canada hockey relationships but this was just okay.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
I’m always down to try new authors writing sapphic romance, and while sports romance still isn’t my niche, I’ve read a few good ones, so I gave this a chance. But this one fell a little flat for me.
While I know nothing about hockey, so I can’t attest to the accuracy of any of this, I do like the way it was presented to color Nat and Darcy’s respective arcs and backstories, and even their relationship. The focus on what it’s like to be an older athlete and reckon with retirement and one’s prospects are rather poignantly conveyed. And these issues are also further impacted when hockey is a part of your family legacy, as is the case for Darcy.
And tying the “retired sports star’s next act” concept into the reality show is a great concept in theory, especially when you also tie in a rivalry with a former player for a rival team who is now in a similar situation in life. I did like what the narrative was trying to do, in capturing how far back their bond went to their college days, and how they fell in love and things ended badly. But this is one of those cases where, while miscommunications and prolonged periods of estrangement obviously are realistic, the “miscommunication trope” can be a drag to read about if you don’t execute it correctly. And the chemistry between the two was sorely lacking, in comparison to the cute moments of the college days. It also felt very drawn-out, when it could have been more succinct, while still having dramatic effect.
While I was let down by this book, I am still open to trying something else from Kate Cochrane in the future as she grows in her craft. And while I didn’t enjoy this, I’d still recommend giving it a chance if you’re interested in sapphic sports romance, and don’t mind the miscommunication trope.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC to review.

On premise alone, I am the target audience for this book. Second chance romance between two female hockey players? Um, yes please! There were plenty of terrific ideas here that I loved; unfortunately, the execution didn’t quite work for me.

My initial big struggle with this book was the choice to use two POVs. Both women are very different on paper with distinct personalities in actions, but their narrative voices are so identical that I would frequently get confused about whose POV I was reading from. This is somewhat of a pet peeve for me, so others might not find this as grating as I did.

Eventually though, it wasn’t the writing I was thinking about... it was Natalie. She starts off fairly immature, but I could understand the circumstances of it and why she couldn't stand Darcy specifically. Darcy definitely didn't handle their relationship well in college and as the older one it was way more on her. But as adults.... well... The third act breakup really killed my love for their relationship. Natalie was beyond immature. She was outright unsupportive and only thinking of herself. All of this was enough to make me dock a star, but what really sealed it was other characters pushing Darcy to make up with her, as if Darcy had done something wrong. Oh, it pained me so much.

I personally struggled with a couple aspects of this story. The narrative felt repetitive at times and I couldn’t get over the immaturity of Natalie that led to the third act break up. I understand where her pain came from, but she allowed her hurt to make her selfish and childish.

I also wanted more out of the dual timeline. I don’t think the college scenes added much since everything shown in those scenes was talked about heavily in the present timeline/could have been fairly characterized in the present. I wanted to see more of their lives as secret girlfriends. Did they sneak away to go on dates? What was the depth of their intimacy? I wanted to understand their relationship outside of hockey practices/road trips better.

This was a fun queer romcom but for a book about hockey, there wasn’t much hockey! I think sports romance can be a tough balance, but I would have liked to at least know who won the USA vs Canada olympic game. All that said the characters were fun and the romance was hot! Solid read!

A spicy sapphic romance that will take you on a journey of lovers to enemies to lovers as we delve into the world of hockey.

Are they friends? Are they dating? Are they comfortable with their personal life "out" there for the world to disect or pick apart?

A little competition never hurt anyone but will Nat and Darcy survive the banter and tension again?

Find out what really happened between these teammates and what they do when they have a second chance to finish what they started all those years ago.

So I did read this while the summer Olympics was going on, but I had an absolute blast. I cannot wait for Winter Olympics 2026! Obviously I felt so SAD after they didn’t call Nat for the team. It’s clear the author has love for hockey, and it was amazing to see this take with women in highly competitive & high impact sports! I will say that the cover for me didn’t totally depict the ladies as well as I had in my head, but that’s just a personal preference!

Second chance romances can gut me, especially when there’s secret romance in here with queer relationships.
Overall this was readable and enjoyable for me.

I really liked this book! I liked the relationship between Nat and Darcy. Second chance is admittedly not my favorite trope but I do think they worked through the reasons for the initial break up well. They didn't just jump back into the relationship without multiple discussions, which I super appreciated. I liked that there were flashbacks to their relationship when they were younger but that they didn't overtake the current timeline - I like when there are fewer flashback chapters than current chapters.

I loved the Olympics backdrop and liked seeing that Nat and Darcy aren't current athletes but instead retired - we do not see this enough!!

The one thing that really frustrated me was the 3rd act breakup. It just felt a little melodramatic and didn't show either characters growth that we had seen throughout the book. It made me feel like they were much younger than they actually were.

Read this for:
- Sapphic romance
- Second Chance
- They were teammates
- Olympics
- Hockey!
- TV Show

Thank you to Harlequin Romance for the eARC and physical ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Nat and Darcy played for the same college hockey team. They also secretly dated until their relationship ended dramatically at the end of the college hockey season. Then, Nat played for the U.S. hockey team, while Darcy played for Canada. They became intense rivals on and off the ice. Now, they are both retired hockey players covering the Olympics on Wake Up, USA. The TV network asks them to play up their past rivalry as they try different winter sports to entertain and educate the viewers. It isn’t long before the TV audience notices the chemistry between Nat and Darcy. Their “relationship” goes viral as #PuckingHotties and the network asks them to play into it to continue to draw viewers. However, as Nat and Darcy continue on camera a real spark develops and they have to navigate both their past and present feelings.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book. However, even though the characters were in their 30s, it still felt a little too much like a juvenile enemies-to-lovers trope. At times, the characters did not act their age. The immature behavior and miscommunication took away from the book's overall premise at times. Overall, I enjoyed the book and found the sapphic hockey romance to be unique and intriguing. I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys enemies to lovers sapphic romances. I give it 3.5/5 stars.