Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Bar Down
SERIES: Grand Marquee Manticores
AUTHOR: Stef C.R.
NARRATOR: Jonathan Lake & Simon Dornet
PUBLISHER: Stef Writes Stories LLC
LENGTH: 8 hours and 50 minutes
RELEASE DATE: August 15, 2025
BLURB:
A funny and spicy MM hockey romance about finding your family and yourself while falling in love with your best friend.
Eli Kalias has a promising future with the Grand Marquee Manticores as their primary goalie, and after two years with the AHL, he’s finally starting to feel confident and comfortable in his role. That is until his best friend kisses him at a New Year’s Eve party and throws him for a loop.
Ash Meyers is the impulsive party boy and also the best forward the team has had in years. Under the surface, he worries he’ll never be enough—not for his team, not for his friends, and definitely not for Eli. Yet, he can’t stop himself from pursuing something more with his best friend.
As they go from friends to more over the course of a year, Ash and Eli realize that falling in love might be more challenging than winning the playoffs. Will they let their careers get in the way of their happiness?
Bar Down is the second book in the Grand Marquee Manticores series of interconnected standalones.
REVIEW:
Note: This is book 2 in this series written by a new author to me and appears to be a first MM book from her. The other books in this series are M/F romances, so that is why I am reviewing book 2 here. There are spoilers for book 1 here but I doesn’t detract from the story of this couple.
The two MCs here are are teammates first who become good friends and then more. Eli, who is a goalie from Finland, is closeted. Ash comes from an wealthy hockey family. His father is a hall of famer and still works in the NHL. His father also is very hard on Ash and they basically have no relationship other than the father berating Ash via text. The messages are always the same: not working hard enough, sloppy play, not living up to his potential, etc. etc. Needless to say this has done a REAL number of Ash’s sense of self. He deals with it by drinking and partying and hooking up. He’s not in a good headspace. And when he tries to pursue something with Eli at a very vulnerable moment and Eli shuts him down, he spirals further.
They end up going to an all star event and Eli realizes he’s jealous when another player is dancing with and touching Ash. Ash sees this and leaves the Eli. Eli is very hyped up and he wants Ash. Badly. So Ash says they can have a friends with benefits type of arrangement – which Eli agrees to. Eli is also not ready to come out to anyone. He had a bad situation with a teammate in Finland and he’s not willing to go down that road again, so if they can keep it just between them, he’s willing to try this. You can see how this is going to end 😉
They end up with a very successful season and for the offseason, Eli decides to go home to Finland to visit his family who he hasn’t seen in a couple of years,. Last minute he invites Ash. Ash accepts. But when they get there, Eli’s family has them in the same room. Uh-oh. Despite their attempts to keep things on the DL, they aren’t as successful as they hope to be and this drives a wedge between them.
Eventually Eli realizes that he is being unfair to Ash and they both have things they need to work on. Their communication is not great and they need to get ready for the upcoming season after a lot of changes. They also have some friends who are plotting to get them together 😉 Thankfully they are successful.
I really enjoyed this book. Despite not being the biggest fan of lack of communication/miscommunication I think it worked in this instance. Both are dealing with some past heavy baggage. Ash’s dad is a jerk. Eli’s ex is a jerk. They both have careers on the line and they are dealing with these things completely differently. Ash has to deal with his bad coping mechanism and I was really glad to see the therapy/mental health rep here. I also appreciated that they both owned their mistakes and vowed to do better. They had a lot of avoidance techniques that clearly weren’t working for them. They got their act together and their careers and their relationship reached new levels. I will likely go back and read the other books in the series because I do like the writing style 🙂 Looking forward to more from this author. Recommended.
RATING: 
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