Reviewed by Kat
TITLE: The Five Hole
SERIES: The Games We Play – Season 2 Multi Author Series
AUTHOR: Aries France
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 233 pages
RELEASE DATE: December 17, 2025
BLURB:
Part of The Games We Play series
A small-town, slow-burn MM romance full of hockey, heart, and second chances
Roe Monroe
Taking a lap in hockey purgatory wasn’t in my plan, but I guess even hockey players don’t plan on blowing out a knee, much less picking up some bad habits on how to deal with the injury.
Fox River Falls wasn’t in the plan either, a town where gossip spreads faster than a slapshot and the local coffee shop doubles as a soap opera set.
I’m here to earn my way back to the NHL—not to flirt with the grumpy carpenter who hates everything I stand for.
Too bad his kid worships me, his scowl kind of turns me on, and his quiet, steady belief in me? Yeah, that’s dangerous.
I’m not here to stay. But he’s making me want things I swore I’d given up on.
Gabe Thatcher
I build things with my hands, raise my kid, and avoid the gossip that Fox River Falls loves so well.
Roe Monroe is exactly the kind of trouble I don’t want, don’t need.
He’s cocky, chaotic, and everything I swore I wouldn’t let near my son—or my heart.
But he sees something in me I stopped believing was there. And when he looks at me, I forget my name.
Somehow, he fits into the life I thought I was building alone.
The Games We Play Season 2 is the second season of this multi-author minor league hockey romance series! All titles run concurrently through the same hockey season and the books can be read in any order, so jump in anywhere!
REVIEW:
I know that Gay Romance Hockey is a really, Really big deal right now and this is the perfect book to experience more!
Gabe Thatcher is not a fan of hockey. But he’s an exceptionally devoted and loving single dad. So Jamie pursuing hockey, and being very good at it, is difficult. He loves and would do anything for his 12-year old son but internally he wish it was anything else. He has deep emotional scars from his youth and hockey. His dad did such a number on him. Add in that the bad boy of the NAPH Rory “Roe” Monroe, who out of rehab and assigned to the local PHL team in Fox River Falls, has decided to help out his kid because he sees all his potential. And volunteering is encouraged by the team. This puts Gabe in a very difficult position and the local small town gossip mill isn’t making it any easier!
I love Author Aries France’s Bear Valley series with the Mann family. I have not been so patiently waiting for her next book and this book definitely DID. NOT. DISAPPOINT!!! Wow! The level of writing in this book brought you right inside these two men’s lives. You were living inside and up close with both Gabe and Roe’s personal battles. And when they finally break down their walls and come together it is real. And raw. And so emotional that you can’t set this book down. These two men are opening up their lives, their fears and there future and laying it out there, right on the line. There are some truly sweet moments and there are some really real and emotional ones. And I savored each and every one of them.
I will admit I have become somewhat of a newbie hockey fan so that part of the book grabbed me first. But this isn’t so much the logistics of hockey but how the game, especially at the professional level, affects not only the player but their loved ones. How much sacrifice is made in the pursuit of professional sports. It was eye opening and genuine.
This series has been so good and Aries France’s contribution was a strong addition. I highly recommend this book and the series!
RATING: 
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