Reviewed by Chris

TITLE:  Breakaway 

SERIES:  Scoring Chances #1

AUTHOR:  Avon Gale

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner Press

LENGTH:  240 pages

BLURB:  

Drafted to play for the Jacksonville Sea Storm, an NHL affiliate, twenty-year-old Lane Courtnall’s future looks bright, apart from the awkwardness he feels as a gay man playing on a minor league hockey team. He’s put his foot in his mouth a few times and alienated his teammates. Then, during a rivalry game, Lane throws off his gloves against Jared Shore, enforcer for the Savannah Renegades. It’s a strange way to begin a relationship.

Jared’s been playing minor league hockey for most of his career. He’s bisexual and doesn’t care if anyone knows. But he’s determined to avoid another love affair after the last one left him devastated. Out of nowhere a one-nighter with rookie Lane Courtnall gives him second thoughts. Lane reminds Jared why he loves the game and why love might be worth the risk. In turn, Jared hopes to show Lane how to be comfortable with himself on and off the ice. But they’re at different points in their careers, and both men will have to decide what they value most.

REVIEW:  

I’m not going to go on at length about what this book is about. Mostly because I can’t figure out how to sum things up in an interesting way. So things you need to know about Breakaway:

1. It is about hockey and hockey players and hockey players that just happen to fall in love and make magic hockey player love together both on and off the ice.
2. Lane is cute and adorable and has absolutely zero brain-to-mouth filter. He is also Canadian so you kinda want to pinch his cheeks while also slapping him upside the head for going on about his best friend’s tits (which may or may not have been pierced).
3. Jared is reaching his twilight years as a hockey player…which is really only mid 30s, but hockey can be hell on the body what with the fighting and the full-body slams into the boards by fast moving walls of muscle and anger on ice skates. So, yeah, he is coming up to the end of his career and boy does he have no clue what to do with that.
4. They meet because Lane really needs his team to like him and he figures the best way to do that is to take on Jared, who plays for their rival team. Let’s just say that Lane’s fighting skills need work…and possibly to be put out of their misery in the back pasture.
5. What Lane lacks in fighting ability he makes up with enthusiasm in the bedroom. Which Jared likes. Which Jared really really likes.
6. Hockey is awesome. You should love hockey. Hockey only wants to consume your soul and replace it with the beautiful sound of skates tearing down the ice with only 4 seconds in the 3rd period, in a tied game, and the feeling the puck leaving your stick at just the right angle at just the right time, in just the right place, and the goalies glove just two inches too low to stop the puck from careening into the back of the net. How could you say no to that?
7. If you don’t love hockey before reading this book, there is like 90% chance that will change by the end of the story. Embrace the madness.

A long time ago I was bored and nothing I was reading was doing the trick. Then a friend on goodreads told me about this free story that I could read online that I might enjoy. Well, free and good are two things I really like, so followed the link, landed in AO3, and was promptly lost in the awesomeness of Hockey RPFs. Which led to me watching my first hockey game, which led to me watching my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th hockey games. At that point, having clearly been sucked into the hockey black hole, I decided to just stop fighting, pick a team, and devote my energy into trying to Jedi-mind-trick the Sharks into not suffering from 3rd period amnesia (after three years, let’s just say that there has been mixed results–the 2014 playoffs still make me want to weep).

All that is basically my long winded way of saying this: I honestly feel like I read that hockey fic so I could fall in love with hockey. It was like a destiny thing. But I also feel like I fell in love with hockey so that I could fall in love with this book. If I didn’t love the sport as much as I do, I would never compulsively snatch up all the hockey books I can find. And if that wasn’t true, I would have never had this book practically thrust upon me by the blog. And if that hadn’t happened, gods only knows how long it would have taken me to get around to it (I am a busy busy boy, after all).

…and that was rather long winded as well. Damn. Can’t do succinct to save my life today, can I.

Ok. Short version. Annnnnnd, go!

I love this book.

I know I say that a lot, and I feel like I should sit all these books down one day and explain that, yes, daddy can love all y’all equally, and no I don’t have favorites (even though I kinda do), it is just that love can exist in a lot of forms, and would Lightning-Struck Heart please stop poking Without Reservations or else I’m going to lock up their glitter crayons till they can learn to respect the others!

And off track again I see. Sorry.

Just I really love this book in so many small and large ways. You don’t even understand. Like if I was to ask Santa for the most perfect hockey book he would give me this one. Because hot damn…do you even get how rare it is to come across a hockey story (or any sport) that really gets how people feel about the sport? Like not just the players, but the atmosphere and just almost childish delight at being able to play the game? This book is everything that made me fall in love with hockey. The good, the bad, the Canadians (and there are a lot of fucking Canadians in hockey).

But also just the characters, man. Lane and Jared…just how can you get more awesome than them? Lane is so…he’s so…he’s so freaking Canadian. And he is a hockey-playing Canadian–which, yeah, totally redundant–with absolutely no brain-to-mouth filter at all. Then there is Jared, who rocks his hockey skills, his age, his bisexuality, and his all round tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-cotton-candy…ness. He is…good.  Good in a way we all want characters to be. A little messed up, and a lot real.

I love the choices made in this book. I like how the characters were exactly who they were without forcing them into small uncomfortable boxes. I love Zoe, and maybe even Ryan. Well…I tolerate Ryan like you tolerate that one cousin you kinda want to smack all the time but also kinda want to get drunk with so you can one day have wild stories about being arrested for public nudity near/on national monuments.

I love the hockey and the people and the book…and I kinda just want to give them all a hug and them force them to all make out. In a totally none weird way.

Um…

So yeah. That’s how I feel about that.

There is a lot I can say about this book, but there is also a lot that I shouldn’t. Because I really do believe that books need to be read to be experienced and to really know them. Why should I ruin your fun? But this is well written and hilarious and heartfelt. It is one of those books you hug because the ending just makes you feel right and at home. It is, without doubt, one of the best books about hockey that I have read. And I can’t wait to read the sequel.

RATING:

BUY LINKS:

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