Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: Good Pucking Luck
SERIES: The Jilted Exes Club #1
AUTHOR: Riley Hart
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 260 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2024
BLURB:
Hayes
Proposing to my first boyfriend at a hockey game wasn’t my smartest move. Not only does said boyfriend walk out on me, but the whole stupid thing goes viral, and it turns out the man I was dating has too many boyfriends to count. Internet fame has crowned me a member of the Jilted Exes’ Club, a name I’d do anything to escape.
One thing’s for I’m not making the same mistake again. No more boyfriends, just easy hookups. And I’ll start with this gorgeous catch in Seattle. The only problem…he’s a god in bed, and I’m an inexperienced mess.
Rylan
After a night with Hayes, I play some of the best games of my career. It’s meant to be a one-and-done deal, but when I find out he also lives in LA and doesn’t want anything serious, I see an opportunity.
Hayes wants experience. I want my good-luck charm to help me win the cup.
The media would go wild over a pro hockey player dating a member of the Jilted Exes’ Club—a distraction neither of us needs. We want this to stay simple. Easy. No strings, no falling in love.
Except I’m pretty sure I’ve already fallen. After all Hayes has been through, how do I get him to entrust his heart to someone who’s only ever been labeled a player on and off the ice?
REVIEW:
This is the first in a new series, the Jilted Exes’ Club. The club centers around the boyfriends of Malcolm, a cheating jerk who had many boyfriends on the side (who even knows who was the boyfriend and which ones are the side pieces?). It is an entirely unwanted membership, especially for Hayes, who proposes to Malcolm at a Rebels hockey game, ends up on the jumbotron getting rudely turned down. “His pupils have blown wide, his head jerking around like he expects the secret service to jump out and grab him.” Yep, that’s what happens you propose to a cheater who realizes he’s been caught. Hayes is completely humiliated, even more so when his dad sends him the link and Hayes realizes it’s viral, with memes and GIFS and all. In this day of recording everything, the event is all over social media and men begin to come forward to say they are Malcolm’s boyfriend as well. Malcolm used all of them. “Things don’t get better over the next few months. I’ve become a meme, a saying. You Got Haysed.” He gets called for interviews and it is the media who makes up the name Jilted Exes’ Club. Unfortunately for Hayes, “…the one dumb enough to propose at a public event is seen as the biggest loser of them all.”
This is the kind of thing that wouldn’t be such a huge deal except the Internet makes it one and doesn’t let the embarrassment fade away. Ryland and Mads, players on the team and hoping for a Superbowl win, see the video online of this and are a little heart broken for Hayes. They are invested because it happened at a Rebels’ game, but they don’t know Hayes.
During a night at a hotel for an away game, Rylan meets Hayes at the hotel bar. Rylan doesn’t know that Hayes is the proposal guy or that his family owns the hotels (and a chain of them) and Hayes doesn’t know that Rylan plays for the Rebels, the home site of his worst night ever. So they end up hooking up. Rylan is relentlessly cheery and sometimes cheesy, and he is the highlight of the story. Hayes is a little harder to like, he’s hot and cold and sometimes borders on rude. He is also a little judgy, but all of this rolls off Rylan.
They end up being this friends with benefits or good luck charm (the phrase magic cum is used). Be aware, because this starts as a hook up story that progresses to the sort of friends with benefits, there is a lot of sex for the length of the book. They keep it hidden, mainly because Hayes can’t imagine the media frenzy that would occur if anyone found out the Jilted Ex who proposed at a Rebels game is with a Rebel and honestly, I couldn’t blame him. People still recognize him. Hayes is sitting at LAX and the worst part of social media rears it’s head when a stranger is staring at him, and draws attention, mentioning “You got Haysed! He chuckles, then holds his hand up like I would want to high five him.” The audacity to mention, let alone laugh about, someone’s worst moment is dreadful.
We get to meet a couple of the other members of the Jilted, Donovan and Anthony, who start to meet up and become friends. Hayes is very reluctant at first but these guys are decent and worth being friends with.
It’s a journey to get anywhere, because the specter of the past hangs there. You will root for them, if only because Rylan is such a great character.
RATING: 
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