Reviews with content warning for Violence - Pucking Around

DNF @ 62%

”It's as if his aura takes up so much space all on its own that he compensates by making the other pieces of himself smaller.”

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This novel combined two of my favorite things: hockey & why choose romance. Unfortunately — it still wasn’t able to live up to my expectations.

I admittedly wasn’t the biggest fan of the prequel to this novel — ”That One Night” — but I’ve heard <b>amazing</b> things about ”Pucking Around” so I still wanted to give the novel a go to satisfy all of my curiosities.

One of the main issues that I had while reading ”Pucking Around” was in regards to Rachel’s characterization (which was a bit confusing at times). It felt as though she was all over the place most of the time — there was no consistency to her character.

In the beginning of the novel Rachel stated that she cared about her position too much to risk anything with Jake + Caleb, but not long after that she ended up sleeping with them & forming a relationship with the pair. I understand that she had to cave at some point (it is a romance novel after all), but I did expect her to hold out for at least a little bit longer than she did…

Another issue that I had with this novel was that all of the relationships seemed to lack healthy communication (at least up until the 62% mark — which is where I stopped). I was more of a fan of Rachel + Ilmari & Jake + Caleb as separate couples rather than the MMFM that they were in the process of forming because there were moments where I couldn’t feel the chemistry between them / it didn’t feel like a true why choose MMFM romance to me.

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It’s possible that I’ll attempt to give this one another go in the future — but for now I will just say that I’m glad that others have read and enjoyed this novel & leave it at that. ♡

Content Warnings

erkietheturkey's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

amy_sutt's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Emily Rath has quickly earned her way onto my autobuy list. I loved her second sons duet. Seriously, what’s not intriguing about why choose in a regency setting? Then I picked up the novella for this series, because I love a hockey romance and I hadn’t read any of Ms. Ruth’s contemporary works and it was excellent. So my preorder got priority in this week’s reading and I am so glad about it. I loved this book so much! Jake and his golden retriever energy, Caleb and his cat manners so worthy of love and so afraid, and Mars…. So many feelings for so few words. I loved Rachel’s character and her backstory and relationships with her family (although I wish we’d seen more of those). I can’t wait for the next book coming this summer.

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