Reviewed by Lesley

TITLE:  Blindsided

SERIES:  Nashville Parliament Book 1

AUTHOR: Carly Marie

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 318 pages

RELEASE DATE: September 28, 2023

BLURB:

I sent my boss into subspace before lunch. Now what?

Easton knows, in the world of professional hockey, he’s getting old and his body can’t take many more hits. When a job offer too good to pass up falls into his lap, Easton goes for it. What should be the start of a new chapter, opens another he thought had closed when he’d been drafted.

With zero knowledge of hockey and less than a week’s notice, Lincoln finds himself as acting owner of the newest hockey team, the Nashville Parliament. Walking into his new office, the last thing he expects is to come face to face with Easton, the man he ghosted eight years earlier. And just as he thinks things can’t get worse, he’s blindsided when he discovers Easton is his employee.

The two know they need to talk about the past, but instead they keep finding themselves in bed together, and their relationship is getting more complicated. Past hurt and betrayal might be too much to overcome, but their friends aren’t going to let them give up without a fight.

Blindsided is the first novel in the Parliament series. This 82k word MM romance is full of new opportunities, second chances, and friends who don’t know the meaning of overshare. Meet new and familiar faces as a leather-clad Dom and his adventurous sub learn to navigate professional hockey, careers, and obstacles intent on keeping them apart.

REVIEW:

This book is a spinoff from the Nashville Grizzlies series and is about the new AHL team, Nashville Parliament.

NHL player Easton Lafferty is getting older and knows he only has a few years of playing left in him at most.. When Tom Cernak, his best friend Brax’s father, calls to offer him the assistant coach job at a new AHL club that is being formed he knows it’s not an opportunity he can ignore.

Imagine his surprise when he walks into the owner’s office of the club and comes face to face with his first love and sub that ghosted him when they were finishing university many years before. Not only that his former love has a different name and comes from a very rich family.

Francis Lincoln Barrington-Lewis is the spare, the second son, in the Barrington Lewis family yet is always expected to step in and sort his golden boy older brother’s messes, which are numerous. Aston the eldest Barrington- Lewis has bought an AHL club and after a drunken party gone bad is now not in a position to perform his responsibilities so Lincoln is sent instead.

Lincoln knows nothing about hockey (like me) and is fed up always having to clear up his brother’s messes. The only time he felt like he was living his life for him rather than the family was when he was “just” Lincoln Lewis, Easton’s sub at university.

Neither man has ever forgotten the other.

What I love most about Carly Marie’s book is the way that they all interlink, and we see people from her other series’. It means you never have to let them completely go. Reading this from the perspective of someone who has read all her other books I found it hard to tell if it would have been as good if I didn’t know the back stories of so many of the characters we get see in this book. Perhaps someone who hasn’t read all the others could let me know please?

Another thing I really like is that although I know nothing about ice hockey that doesn’t matter. Many sports books can go straight over my head, but Carly’s don’t. Anything ice hockey specific is explained in a way so that I don’t feel confused, such as explaining it to a character that knows nothing about the game.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more in this series.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon