Between The Blue Review

Genre: Adult, Contempary, Romance, Sports, Hockey

Page Count: 422

Style: Ebook

Trigger Warning: Death, mention of cancer, Fighting (yes, hockey is violent and players get into fights sometimes), Mention of Blood

Summary:

HIM:

They say that history always finds a way to repeat itself. There is only one problem. Bennett James has worked so hard to make sure that the past stays in the past. He is in Texas to do one thing and one thing only. To play his game. To stay focused. To keep his heart and mind locked away in the same box that he had them in for the better part of a decade. He wants to lead his team like any decent NHL captain should. But there is one problem. Addison. The girl who is threatening him faces the demons of his past and has him confront it head-on.

HER:

Addison is sure that she never had an enemy in her life. So she doesn’t know what she did within the first hour of being in the new city where she had made one. But somehow she can’t tear her eyes away from his searing gaze. The one that stays locked on hers and pairs it all too well with the loathing grimace covering the rest of his face. The one saying I told you not to come here. Addison won’t back down. She can’t. The opportunity that she has been presented means too much to her. Everything that she has ever worked for is within her reach. And if working for the Texas Storm hockey team is how she is going to help make her dreams come true then she is going to work for the Texas Storm Hockey Team. But there is one thing standing in her way. The captain. Bennett James.

Thoughts:

If you know me then you know that I dont rate books 5 stars just because. This one was one of those where you knew how it was going to end, like most romance novels, but the journey of this one is one that I knew that I was going to like. Yes, it did take some time to get into the story but once I did, it was something that I knew that I couldn’t put down no matter how much you paid me.

I will be the first to admit that this was my first hockey romance read. As much as my expectations were low when it came to the story, I was blown away by how well this book was fleshed out. It made me want to go back and read the other books by this author. I will say that I loved the fact that the majority of Bennett James’ chapters were in the past. Because it was almost like since we got a glimpse into his past we can understand why he is the way that he is in the present. And why he is the way that he is with Addison.

I will say that this reminded me why I enjoy enemies to lovers because this was everything that I wanted when it came to that department. I loved the emotion that came with this book and I enjoyed the slow burn that also happened within this book. I think that this is one of those books that I think that I would reread and get a physical copy of because that is how much I enjoyed it. And as much as I enjoy reading on a Kindle, I think that I would have just as much fun reading the physical copy of this book as much as I enjoyed reading the Kindle version. And that is saying something.

The only thing that I wasn’t the biggest fan of was the fact that Bennett was trying to push away Addison. Because every time that he got close to her, you can tell that as much as he wants to let himself be with Addison, he still is in the same mindset that “if I allow myself to fall in love she going to leave me too” which ends up BITING him in the ass later on because of how hot and cold he was with Addison. Even though as the reader, you understand why it was the miscommunication with himself that caused him to miscommunicate with Addison into not knowing where that left them or what he wanted from the relationship the more that they were around each other.