Title: Shots on Goal
Series: Stick Side: Book Three
Author: Amy Aislin
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 306 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
At a Glance: Shots on Goal is another huge win for Amy Aislin. She continues to impress me with every book—but, her hockey boys are my favorite. I can’t wait to see what’s up next in this series!
Reviewed By: Jules
Blurb: Recently traded to the newly formed Vermont Trailblazers, professional hockey player Roman Kinsey needs to focus on helping the team win games and filling the stands, not on the blond, bespectacled part-timer who works at the library he volunteers at. He knows all too well that outing himself equals heartache and ridicule…or worse.
Cody Evans, psych major and grad school hopeful, notices everything and thinks too much. But he doesn’t know what to think when he sees Roman reading to kids. The rugged hockey player just doesn’t look like the type. But it stirs something in him, something he’s never felt before.
When the library is threatened with closure, Cody enlists Roman’s help. As they get to know each other better…much, much better…they realize that they have more in common than books. But Roman’s keeping a big part of himself from his team, and giving in to his feelings for Cody might be more than he’s willing to risk.
Review: I am loving Amy Aislin’s Stick Side series, you guys; and I’m pretty sure this latest installment is my favorite book yet. Shots on Goal is the third in the series and features two guys we have met in previous books: Cody Evans and Roman Kinsey. Cody has been in both previous books—he’s the roommate of Mitch, one of the MCs from book one—but it was nice to get his full story here. And, since we really only saw one side of Kinsey in the second book, I absolutely loved getting to know him and learning his back story as well. I will also say that, even though it’s nice to be familiar with all the connections, I do think you could read this book as a standalone with no problem if you wanted to.
Cody is such a genuinely good guy, it’s impossible not to love him. His friendship with Mitch is epic. I loved getting to see more of that in this book (as well as getting another little peak at how Mitch and Alex are doing). In fact, part of the conflict in Shots on Goal, at least for Cody, is whether or not he’s going to get into the graduate program he applied to in Boston, where Mitch is going to play hockey, and how that’s going to affect their friendship if he doesn’t. And, later, when Roman is in the picture, whether he’ll go if he does get in, as he can’t imagine having to choose between Mitch and Roman. The other thing Cody is struggling with is his strained relationship with his father, who has been largely absent for most of Cody’s life. The absence and seeming indifference toward Cody from his dad have made him slow to trust, and certainly afraid to ask people for any type of commitment.
Roman is also very slow to trust people. He was burned by basically everyone he knew or cared about when he was outed as a teenager by his best friend on his major juniors hockey team. His best friend, his coach, his family—everyone turned their back on him when he was caught kissing a boy in the locker room. Since then he has learned to keep his guard up and keep everyone out—so much so that he’s missed out on opportunities for friendships and giving more to his teams. But, when he’s traded mid-season to the new NHL expansion team in Vermont, things begin to slowly turn around for him.
I adored every single thing about this book. I loved both Cody and Roman, and I really loved them together. They are so patient and sweet with one another, and I love how they each gave the other different insights and ways to look at their problems. I also LOVE all the supporting characters. Not only do we get cameos of the guys from the first two books, but Roman’s new teammates are ah-mazing, Ritz and Honeybun especially. And, I totally fell for Mitch all over again. Aislin did such an excellent job with the character development in this book. I loved Roman cooking for his team to try to win them over, I loved how Ritz and Honeybun didn’t give up on him. I loved how Roman’s coach treated him. I was truly so invested in each and every one of them. I smiled for days after finishing this one.
Shots on Goal is another huge win for Amy Aislin. She continues to impress me with every book—but, her hockey boys are my favorite. 😊 I can’t wait to see what’s up next in this series!
You can buy Shots on Goal here:
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