Female Athletes
Hockey, soccer, hockey, HOT
I don’t think anyone paying attention is surprised to hear about the double standards facing female athletes, be they in college or in professional sports. So when a book really forces you to see this up close in a genre that most often features liberal arts girlies paired with big hulking hockey players, I pay attention. This might seem out of character, but I actually used to be a bit of a jock (as much as I was a bookworm some years, in fact!) so getting to reignite my love of team sports through reading so many years later is always a joy. Scroll to the bottom for pics of proof ; )
The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy. My first contemporary “next generation”! As you might remember, I’m confusingly obsessed (though I’m becoming less confused and more just obsessed) with Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus series. The Graham Effect features the daughter (whose conception featured strongly in the final epilogue anthology The Legacy) of Garrett and Hannah from The Deal. My favorite couple, bar none.
I felt weirdly emotional about getting to see Garrett and Hannah all grown up, with 21 year old twins they dote on and clearly have a really positive relationship with. Especially because the third act “breakup” of The Graham Effect isn’t about the main couple (Gigi and Ryder, we’ll get to them in a sec) but about Garrett and his daughter and the complicated way trying to break generational trauma can manifest even when you have the best of intentions.
Ok fine I’ll talk about the actual love story. We’ve got GiGi, arguably one of the best female hockey players in the country who’s currently in college at her parents’ alma mater biding her time until Team USA calls her up. It’s eventually revealed (not a spoiler) that her goal of an Olympic Gold is part ambition (she’s Garrett Graham’s daughter after all), but also part wanting to break away from being “she’s Garret Graham’s daughter after all.” Because she’s a woman, she can’t ever win the Stanley Cup like her dad, so the only thing she can achieve in their shared sport that he never did prior to retirement is win at the Olympics. Legacy can be a heavy burden indeed.
Speaking of, Luke Ryder, a player on the men’s college hockey team, has a VERY different family legacy he’s contending with. The full reveal is late enough in the book that I don’t want to spoil it for you here, but suffice it to say, he’s had it rough and despite making terrible first impressions as a result, he’s desperate to fight off the implication that all he is is his father’s son. There’s a reason he prefers to be called Ryder and not Luke.
Gigi and Luke start out as not quite enemies, but certainly not friends, and though I found their relationship escalation a little oddly paced, I liked both of these characters, I liked how confident they both are about who they are and why they want to accomplish what they do, and I really really loved seeing all my other Off Campus couples making cute little cameos. Elle Kennedy’s strength really is her characters, by far, even when her dialog and prose occasionally still makes me cringe. But also, not so much that I don’t reread The Deal quarterly and immediately gobble up every new release after already exhausting her backlist.
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Kulti by Mariana Zapata. Yulin Kuang (filmmaker I’ve followed for a long time, soon to be published romance author, person whose fault it is that I fell headfirst into romance novels) once referred to another Mariana Zapata book as a “trollishly slow burn” and truly no description has ever been more accurate. I know it’s her whole deal, but good GOD, especially given her books are also a bit longer than the traditional contemporary romance, it’s near unacceptable how slow burn both the relationships and the spice are in her stories.
And yet, she’s got a special kind of magic when it comes to writing characters, and you’re too invested to be too angry about how long everything is taking. Mariana Zapata characters are SO specific, make SUCH bad decisions, and yet are fiercely loyal and empathetic and you find yourself rooting for them like they’re your best friend by page 2.
In this book, we’ve got Sal, a professional female soccer player, and her new [terrible] coach, the [recently retired] international soccer star Kulti, whose poster she had on her wall as a teen and who she had the HUGEST crush on until that time he played soccer against her older brother (also a professional player) and nearly injured him out of a career. Sal’s got a lot of baggage in general, as well as a lot of imposter syndrome coming from just about every angle, and Kulti identifies primarily as A Problem. But Sal’s relentless loyalty and kindness and patience leads us first to a genuinely wholesome player/coach relationship, then friendship, and then, of course, love story. Because really, what is love but trust and friendship? This book rewired my brain, and I loved the way that Sal’s career was never made to feel lesser than despite Kulti’s international renown. I also loved the epilogue both for the way it was presented as well as the revelations. I’m definitely team “epilogue should be at least one, if not many more, years into the future.”
If you want a deeper dive into the actual plot, I recommend Stephanie Archer’s podcast (an author I’ve featured before!), which inspired me to read this book a second time before reviewing here!
Rating: 4.5/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥
Bombshells by Sarina Bowen. I went all the way down the Sarina Bown rabbit hole this year, and I was not disappointed. She’s got a lot spiritually in common with Elle Kennedy, in a way I will have trouble articulating, and is a frequent co-writer of hers, so if you like EK, you’ll probably enjoy SB as well.
Bombshells is part of an expansive Brooklyn-based series of hockey and hockey adjacent romances, which also dips its toe into another of Sarina Bowen’s series (which I think is my favorite of hers- True North). The beginning of this series follows a tech billionaire who buys a struggling NYC hockey team and moves it to Brooklyn with new facilities and coaches, and then follows the players. Bombshells is the start of a new continuity, where the love interest from book 1, the billionaire’s wife, brings a women’s professional hockey team to the area because now that she’s got that Fuck You money, she wants to support women athletes as well.
The couple in this book is Sylvie, the goalie for the new women’s team with a long-standing spoken/unspoken romantic agreement with a member of the men’s team, and Anton is a just-beyond-rookie hotshot for the men’s team who’s in desperate need of an image rehab after an extra playboyish prior season. Anton’s wary of his attraction to Sylvie both because she’s got a situationship with his teammate but also because he’s sworn off drinking and women to get his act together. Sylvie’s wary of her attraction to Anton because her new position on the new women’s team is tenuous (as is being a female athlete to begin with) and she’s not sure if she’s ready to give up the familiarity of her undefined situationship with Anton’s teammate. It’s a MESS. So of course I love it.
I thought this book did a good job navigating the deeply unfair and unequal treatment between athletes in the same sport but playing for different gendered leagues, as well as navigating the stresses of being a professional athlete in general.
Rating: 4/5
How hot? 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Next week, I’ll be recommending more sex lessons books!
What should I be reading next? Let me know in the comments!
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In elementary school I played: soccer, softball, tennis, basketball
In middle school I played: basketball, volleyball, swim
In high school (and the end of middle school) I fenced!