Reviewed by Lady Macbeth
TITLE: Delayed Penalty
SERIES: Scoring Chances #4
AUTHOR: Brigham Vaughn
PUBLISHER: Two Peninsulas Press
LENGTH: 537 Pages
RELEASE DATE: December 12, 2025
BLURB:
The last thing Thad Racine needs is to fall for a guy playing for his brother’s hockey team …
As an ex-con, Thad’s had a rough life. Getting a job in the social media department of the Boston Harriers is his last-ditch effort at a fresh start.
He may not be raking in money like his previously estranged twin—the team’s GM—but he finally has a career he likes, a regular paycheck, and some stability. There’s only one catch: if he screws around with anyone working for the Harriers, he’ll be fired.
The last thing he expects is to fall for Graham Pennington.
The golden boy. The high-scoring forward who’s a crucial part of the team. The assistant captain.
Oh yeah, and he’s straight.
Falling in love with his GM’s brother isn’t part of Graham’s five-year plan.
Graham knows what he wants: find love and help lead his team to a Stanley Cup win.
So why do none of his relationships with women ever seem to work out?
After a totally unexpected but sizzling kiss with his friend Thad, he’s confused and a little conflicted. Has he been looking for love in all the wrong places?
Graham’s desire to be with Thad wars with his goal of helping the team find success. Despite Thad’s growing feelings, he’s terrified to risk his new career or the relationship he’s slowly rebuilding with his brother.
When the pressure from their secrets threatens their carefully laid plans, will they be ready to risk everything for love?
CONTENT WARNING:
Discussions of prison and the prison system, including the impact it has on BIPOC communities.
Scenes featuring emotional abandonment by parental figures and homophobia.
REVIEW:
I’m so happy Brigham Vaughn gave Thad his happy ending, he totally deserved it.
We met Thad in the second book of this series, where his twin brother Gavin, the General Manager of the Boston Harries, falls in love with Dakota, yoga and pilates instructor. Gavin gives his ex-con brother a position with the Harriers and Thad is slowly building a solid reputation by doing an amazing job.
The twins’ lives are still tightly interwoven even if they spent more than two decades apart. In the previous book, we got to know what happened when they were 18 years old and why Thad ended up in prison, but we only had Gavin’s pov about that.
Now we can really understand what Thad went through and how all that almost irremediably affected him.
On the outside, Thad seems like a cool guy, very good at his job, easygoing with the players, always with a flirty attitude towards men and women.
In reality, Thad is a lonely man, trying to move forward while carrying heavy issues from his past. He often feels inadequate, unworthy, he’s used to being left behind and he uses sarcasm and flirting as an armor; when Graham offers him his friendship, he finally feels like someone can really see him.
Graham is quite the opposite: he’s the golden boy, the sweetheart, the man with a solid plan for the future, the amazing hockey player.
But when Graham kisses Thad for the first time, everything he’s known so far crumbles and leaves him full of doubts.
I liked how the author described Graham’s sexual awakening and especially the fact that he took his time to understand all the new confusing feelings he was having, instead of jumping in bed with Thad.
And I also loved how Thad had to work hard to let himself relax and believe that Graham was there for him, that he could trust him completely and that he wouldn’t leave. I appreciated very much that Thad wasn’t a kind of sex coach for his boyfriend, but that he held back to not pressure Graham.
The progression of their relationship is slow and they need to adjust along the way, they also need to protect their jobs. But their love is steady and they don’t let the difficulties push them apart.
The Boston Harriers, both players and management, are amazing, I had so much fun reading about Tanner and Jesse’s antics. I hope the next book will be about Luke Crawford because I’m very interested in his beef with his critic fan.
RATING: 
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