Book Title: The Best Parts of Him
Series: Vermont Trailblazers 1
Author and Publisher: Amy Aislin
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase
Release Date: October 28, 2025
Tense/POV: third person, past tense
Genres: M/M Contemporary Romance
Tropes: Hockey, forced proximity, opposites attract, long-distance romance
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Length: 57 000 words / 210 pages
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
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Sometimes the sweetest victories happen off the ice.
Blurb
Ryland Zervudachi lives for the game of hockey—and for the chance to build the kind of team unity that will carry the Columbus Pilots all the way back to the playoffs after last season’s crushing defeat. Off the ice, though, there’s one goal he hasn’t managed to score—the heart of Kyle Dabbs, the Vermont Trailblazers’ team captain and his long-time crush.
Kyle Dabbs has built a life centered on quiet strength. After a childhood scarred by his father’s verbal abuse, Dabbs pours his energy into his career on the ice and the book series he’s written to help kids like the boy he once was. He doesn’t need someone flashy, loud, and spotlight-loving like Ryland turning his world upside down.
But when an untimely appendectomy leaves Dabbs stuck at home, Ryland—recovering from an injury—shows up to help. Between late-night Scrabble competitions, pumpkin-carving mishaps, and long talks that peel back layers they’ve both kept hidden, Dabbs begins to see past Ryland’s bold exterior.
With chemistry sparking and walls crumbling, both men must decide if they’re ready to risk their hearts for something even better than a championship: love.
Dabbs woke up to pitch-darkness and a tangle of limbs.
And not in the sexy way.
The Zervudachis had pitched three tents in their yard once they’d all returned from The Striped Maple. Brie, the eldest of the Zervudachi siblings, had arrived just in time to claim one for her and her kids. Bellamy and Jason had claimed a second, which had left Dabbs and Ryland sharing a third.
Dabbs hadn’t had time to worry about that before the kids had announced that they were all sleeping in the same tent.
As he and Bellamy had left Maplewood, Dabbs had second-guessed leaving his dogs with a teammate for the night. Now that he was part of a human puppy pile?
There was no way the dogs would’ve slept comfortably in this tent that currently held seven—including three jacked hockey players—but that technically only fit four.
Hell, Dabbs hadn’t been sleeping comfortably.
He quietly disentangled himself from someone’s arm and someone else’s leg. At least, he assumed it was someone else’s leg, otherwise that person was contorted into a pretzel around him. He unzipped the tent, crawled out, re-zipped it, grabbed one of the flashlights that had been left out for middle-of-the-night pee breaks, and slipped into his flip-flops.
His beers had caught up with him. He was going to burst if he didn’t take a piss in the next ten seconds.
The exterior lights on the house provided enough illumination to navigate the yard, so he rounded the fire pit they’d set the tents up around, then clicked on his flashlight when he neared the tree line.
Stepping into the forest in the middle of the night wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat. Shadows stretched every which way and twigs snapped under his shoes. Between the rustling of the foliage and the chittering of night insects, it wasn’t anywhere near as silent as he expected.
He didn’t venture too far into the forest—firstly, he didn’t want to stumble across the farm’s tapping lines. Secondly . . .
It was creepy as fuck.
He went far enough so that no one coming out of the tent would spot him and relieved himself against a tree. A couple of moths, attracted by his light, settled on the flashlight, and he gave it a shake once he’d tucked himself back into his boxers.
“Get out of here, you annoying—ahhhh!”
He jerked backward, stepping on his own flip-flop in the process. He landed on his back, sprawled like a dead starfish. The flashlight went flying, and Jesus fucking Christ, there was someone in the forest with him. He was about to be murdered by a forest-dwelling serial killer and—
Laughter reached his ears. He grabbed for the flashlight, shone it at his murderer, and—
“Ryland?”
“Oh my god,” Ryland croaked through his guffaws. “Oh my god, that was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Ahhhh!”
That last was clearly meant to be an imitation of Dabbs.
“Jesus fuck, Ryland. You asshole.” Heart hammering fast enough to burst out of his chest, Dabbs slumped back against the ground.
Then pictured creepy-crawlies creepy-crawling all over him and practically flew onto his feet.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?”
Ryland wiped away tears of laughter. “Taking a piss. What else? God, I wish I’d recorded that.”
“Asshole,” Dabbs reiterated without any heat.
Amy’s lived with her head in the clouds since she first picked up a book as a child, and being fluent in two languages means she’s read a lot of books! She first picked up a pen on a rainy day in fourth grade when her class had to stay inside for recess. Tales of treasure hunts with her classmates eventually morphed into love stories between men, and she’s been writing ever since. She writes evenings and weekends—or whenever she isn’t at her full-time day job saving the planet at Canada’s largest environmental non-profit.
An unapologetic introvert, Amy reads too much and socializes too little, with no regrets. She loves connecting with readers. Join her Facebook Group to stay up-to-date on upcoming releases and for access to early teasers, find her on Instagram, or sign up for her infrequent newsletter.
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