Book Reviews

Book Blurb

The best college hockey player in the country is hanging up his skates because he’s tired of living a lie. Five years ago, Erik Fox’s father found out about his indiscretions and forced him to change schools in the middle of the night. Erik had a boyfriend, and hockey players do not date boys.

With his college career over, Erik is determined to get his life on the right track, and that means making peace with the boy he left behind and living according to his own desires. But to do it, he must resist pressure from his father and everyone who wants to define him as nothing but a hockey player.

NOTE: First Edition published by Silver Publishing, March 2013.

Book Review

This was one of those books that gripped me from the first page. Why? Basically, the conflicts Erik faces are tough (both as an athlete on a professional level and as a man in his personal life), he clearly has no idea how to deal with his emotions, and he suffers before the story really starts. There is also something about his voice, the way he thinks and avoids dealing with life that struck me as realistic and kept me wanting to know what's next. Of course, by the time Tyce is introduced, I was already hooked!

Erik is a hockey player with a very defined image of what he should be like, and whom he should be attracted to. From the very beginning it is clear that, deep down, he has a different opinion, but it is equally obvious that "he cannot give in" to what he most wants. As the story develops, the full extent of the disaster that is his life as a college senior and future hockey professional unfolds: his father terrorizes him, he has a fiancée he doesn’t love, and the one person who was his best friend and secret lover is unreachable for him. The self-recrimination is terrible, and the emotional mess he is in made me cringe.

His initial lack of ability to change this was quite embarrassing, I mean, for a guy of 22 or 23, he had not really grown up to form his own opinions, always falling in with what his father wanted. Now, he is finally paying for it. The rest of the book is about the process of digging himself out of this hole, the new terror that awaits him once he frees himself, and the emotional growing up that follows. Spellbinding, as well as highly frustrating, when he has a relapse – or two.

Tyce doesn't have it easy either, buy mainly because he loves Erik deeply and the man walking away from him almost killed him. I totally sympathized with Tyce, and the way he deals with the situation is admirable. He is also very giving and has some great friends, all of which helps him to deal with Erik's emotional growth spurts.

If you like stories that make you squirm and push you to the edge of your seat, if you enjoy reading about men who have a lot of emotional growing up to do, and if you're looking for a great love story, you will probably like this book.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Novel, 200 pages/68464 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	22-August-2014
Price
Buy Link	OUT OF PRINT