Reviewed by Lady Macbeth
TITLE: Home Ice
AUTHOR: Saxon James
PUBLISHER: May Books
LENGTH: 350 Pages
RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2026
BLURB:
TAI
Ten years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life.
When Hawke left for the NHL and my hockey dreams went up in smoke, I ghosted my best and longest friend. It made sense at the time, but there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t missed him.
So when we run into each other again, and his only response is “Do I know you?”, I know I deserve it. But I refuse to let one mistake keep us apart forever. Especially when he has bigger problems, and I’m in a position to help him.
JENSEN
All I wanted this offseason was to spend my time relaxing–not getting an emergency phone call from Mom to come home. My hometown is full of too many memories of me and Tai so I avoid returning there as much as I can.
But now I have one more memory to add to the list: my high school girlfriend.
And the kid we apparently had together.
Kasen hates me and thinks I abandoned them, and my only way to get to him is through his coach. My ex-best friend. The friend that has been impossible to forget. No matter how much I’ve tried.
REVIEW:
New standalone from Saxon James and she hit me just right with this romance.
We’ve met Jensen Hawke in the last book of the Puckboys series, he was Little Kiki’s teammate and roommate. In this book, Hawke gets a very astonishing news and gets back to his hometown to deal with it. Little did he know that that trip would get him a son and a forever love.
One thing that made me like Hawke so much was his determination to win his son’s affection: he didn’t just throw money around and wash his hands of him by signing away his parental rights and dumping him with his grandmother. He actually worked for it, he tried over and over again to get close to a moody teenager who had his life turned upside down after his mom’s death.
I also felt sorry for Hawke because both Tai and his ex-girlfriend Carly made pretty hard decisions without telling him anything. They had their reasons, but Hawke should have been part of their lives and instead he lost a friend and also never had the chance to know his son since his birth.
That was the part that really made me dislike Carly: Hawke was robbed of all those years and all his son’s firsts because she had decided he was not father material. Moreover, Kasen was robbed of his dad.
Kasen was the third main character of this story, he was a wonderful young man, determined on the ice and messy and loud outside of it, just like every teenager should be. I hope the author will consider giving him his own book in the future
It was good to see Tai and Hawke reconnecting and being friends again and I really loved that, by mending his friendship with Hawke, Tai slowly started to take care of himself. His journey was a bit painful, but finally he realised he deserved good things in his life too.
And his father was really really amazing!
A few little things seemed a bit inconsistent with the small town vibe of this book: if Hawke and Carly dated during high school and both Hawke parents and Tai knew it very well, how come no one found Kasen’s remarkable resemblance with Hawke a bit suspicious? How come Hawke and his parents never knew Tai’s dad had a stroke that left him disabled?
All this secrecy seemed to clash with the small town life where usually everyone knows everything through the grapevine.
Anyway, this story was lovely and I adored the epilogue. Can’t wait for more from this author.
RATING: 
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