REVIEWED by Jen B.
TITLE: Final Shot
SERIES: Overtime
AUTHOR: V.L. Locey
PUBLISHER: V.L. Locey
LENGTH: 200 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 3, 2020
BLURB:
Sometimes family is the light that leads you through the darkest parts of life.
Living the dream. That’s been Dan Arou-Kalinski’s life for the past ten years. That life hasn’t always been an easy one though. Dan has worked hard to get where he is and has faced some major obstacles on his road to success. It’s not always been a rose garden being married to Victor, but his love for his sometimes thorny husband has no bounds. His career has given him years of great success, memories, and championship rings. Yes, fate has been kind to Dan Arou-Kalinski for quite a long time. Looks like destiny is about to start calling in some markers.
The paybacks come due when a recurring health issue turns into a life or death situation and threatens to take him out of the game he loves permanently. Then there’s Victor’s son Jack, a proud and out nonbinary preteen who is living a daily nightmare in a small southern town. Juggling two major life issues is taking its toll on him, and just when he thinks he’s found the path out of the woods, Dan will face an unexpected and devastating loss that will require all three of the Kalinski men to pull together to help each other through the dark times.
REVIEW: This is another segment into the lives of Dan and Victor. The tables are turned in more ways than one in this story told from Dan’s point of view. It also focuses more on Dan and the issues he is now facing, but as before, the family unit is also a bit part of the story.
So, Dan is in the hotseat this time around. His injuries (new and old) are taking their toll and Dan is faced with an addiction to pain killers. Luckily, he has Vic by his side to keep him in line and push him in the right direction getting the help he needs. Dan fights that help for a bit, but it doesn’t take long for him to come to grips. Getting over the embarrassment/shame of it is a big part of his problem as well. To further complicate things for Dan, he must now consider that his life as a pro hockey player is at an end which is a big thing to accept as well.
In this reversal of roles, Vic is the solid one with his act basically together. He has made a new life for himself in Boston after moving to be there with Dan. He never gave up hope of having his son, Jack, come live with them, and although the circumstances are not the best, this finally comes to fruition.
I loved seeing Dan and Vic together. They are still happily married, but they sound more like an every-day couple than most we read about. They nit-pick each other and have small spats, but at the end of the day, they are there for each other and work together to make things work. I thought Dan sounded as though he had reverted back to a teenager in the way he now spoke which I think may have been done to paint the picture of him using. I loved seeing Vic hasn’t changed with the lesbian neighbors and you can clearly see he actually likes them underneath his attempts to prove otherwise.
This was a solid addition to the series. While it felt like one negative event too many, I definitely enjoyed it better than the previous book, and it looks like the next story will focus on Jack, so that could be interesting as well. Not sure if it is veering away from the hockey aspect since both men aren’t as involved, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
RATING:
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