Reviewed by Sadonna

TITLE:  Fire in the Ice

SERIES:  Nice Catching You

AUTHORS:  Ryan Taylor and Joshua Harwood

NARRATOR:  Nick J. Russo

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  8 hours and 19 minutes

RELEASE DATE:   March 14, 2022

BLURB:  

What if love threatened to destroy everything you’d worked for?

Hockey right winger Tyler Jensen isn’t thrilled to get the news he’s been traded to the Bethesda Barracudas. The team may be red-hot in the rankings, but there’s someone there he’d rather not have to see every day.

Defenseman Kevin Moore is one of the top-rated rookies in the country. He’s living the dream playing for the Barracudas – until he hears that his old high school crush Tyler is joining the team. Ty was once everything Kev wanted, but their age difference got in the way. Tyler decided a three-year gap was too much and left Kevin behind.

In Bethesda, Tyler doesn’t take long to notice that Kevin has grown up into precisely the kind of man he can’t resist – brawny, brainy, and beautiful. Kev feels the pull, too, and as the men become closer, they work hard to keep their budding relationship secret. Professional hockey may be welcoming gay players now, but Ty and Kev aren’t sure management would like the idea of two Barracudas taking teamwork to an entirely new level.

As the playoffs loom, news of their romance gets out. Ty and Kev, caught in a storm of controversy that threatens to destroy them, need a power play to save their careers. How will they find one before it’s too late?

Fire in the Ice delivers on the promise that second chances can work and dreams can come true. If you like exciting hockey, plenty of humor, a beautiful HEA, new adults, young athletes, and enough heat to burn down the house, this book is for you.

REVIEW:

NOTE:  This is the third book in this series and contains major spoilers for the previous books.

Tyler Jensen is a pro hockey player who gets traded to another team just at the trade deadline.  The team happens to be captained by his HS boyfriend, Nick Johnson (we met this couple and the third guy in the second book of this series).  Another player on the team is a guy who also played HS hockey with Nick and Tyler, defenseman Kevin Moore.  Kevin is none too thrilled with Tyler because he had a huge crush on Tyler – despite knowing he was with Nick at the time and that there was an age difference there.  But they remained friendly after HS and Nick and Tyler broke up.  At one point though, Tyler ghosted Kevin.  Then earlier in the season, Tyler go drunk a propositioned Kevin while on a road trip.  Kevin wasn’t at all happy wtih Tyler and gives him the cold shoulder.  But they are teammates and they have to get past it.  it takes some time, but they eventually talk it out and Tyler apologizes.  They decide to take things slow.  Until they don’t.  But they need to keep things on the DL from their team.  Which they do with the help of Nick and Kevin’s road trip roommate.

When a picture gets leaked of Kevin and Tyler kissing in the street – even though they were sure they were alone – well things get a bit our of hand.  There are issues with the team, social media, the press and public relations.  Luckily things get handled in a professional way and the homophobia gets rooted out of the organization – but not without a little sturm und drang.  Kevin and Tyler have the full support of the team behind them and it ends up being less of an issue than they thought it might be. Of course they are playing really good hockey so that helps a lot 😀  Things go their way both professionally and personally setting up a very sweet story.

Things that I liked:

1. A future world with multiple out athletes in one of the premium professional sports league
2. Supportive friends, family and team ownership
3. Second chance and relatively low angst romance
4. Hilarious turn of events with parents
5. Nice revisit with Nick and Jacob from the previous book Nice Catching You
6. A sweet happy ending
7. Mature relationship showing adult friendship after a high school romance faded and both moved on

Things I didn’t like:

1. Too many sex scenes
2. Cutesy nicknames for male members
3. Very quick from high school crush to neglected hurt feelings to HEA for guys who haven’t been in the same state for 7 years and never spent that much time together

This may be more of a case of it’s me.  To me these guys read younger than I expect them to behave, but again, that could just be my expectations. I’m recommending this with the reservations above.

Nick J. Russo is a wonderful narrator and I was probably more invested his performance than the story would have warranted.  He did a great job and kudos to him for getting through the many many sex scenes.  There are a few of my pet peeves in this story that I decided at some point I had to just get over or I wasn’t going to be able to get through the story.  He definitely takes the story to another level with his performance.  There is a lot of hockey stuff here – which is another plus for fans of the game.  If you are a fan of hockey romances and don’t want a lot of angst, this might be the story for you.

RATING:

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