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tinybull's review
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Theo Lane & Rowan Foley. Second chance, teammates to lovers. Theo and Rowan played together in juniors and were involved but grew apart after being drafted. Eight years later, Rowan joins Theo’s team. I loved the tension between these two in the beginning. Later I loved finding out that while Rowan is this superstar hockey player, he’s inexperienced elsewhere in life and hasn’t been sexually touched (by another person) since Theo eight years prior I also like how this story didn’t center on being an out player or having to come out or being publicly outted. I feel like it’s so classic to win the cup and then kiss in front of everyone - but I’m glad they didn’t. I also like how Rowan drunkenly professed his love in front of the team at the after party celebration and some young guy yelled “those are my dads!”
yinyin's review
2.0
serial numbers very lightly filed off
includes the quote “Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we had been drafted to the same team? If you were, like, one notch worse at hockey, and I was one notch better, and we’d been picked back-to-back by Vancouver?” which is something that happened in 1999…. to identical twin brothers…
includes the quote “Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we had been drafted to the same team? If you were, like, one notch worse at hockey, and I was one notch better, and we’d been picked back-to-back by Vancouver?” which is something that happened in 1999…. to identical twin brothers…
yazaleea's review
3.0
So that was odd.
I really wanted to like this, liked the premise but as the story unfolded, it did nothing to me. Pissed me off a bit. At first, I was living for Theo's pettiness. Like you go, boy, be a dysfunctional, mean adult! And then it got old. He was just an asshole and nothing changed and the story does not properly convey the reasons why Theo & Rowan stopped talking in the first place. Like sure, we get the facts, I guess, but the gravity of them don't really come through. They were everything to each other back when they were in minors, and I am not very convinced by why they grew apart, I didn't really understand the resentment. From the facts alone, I can see why they drifted apart, but the narration didn't sell it to me.
Another thing that pissed me off is the lack of friendship. I love hockey romances because my favourite come with a fun, dynamic side cast, often a found family-adjacent trope that I love. The others just don't really care to dive into the team dynamics and that's something that is lacking to me. Vic is Theo's closest friend and we don't get a single meaningful conversation between them. He is just dating the whole time and of course that means he cannot be a friend, even at times he SHOULD have been there. He is the captain, and he did NO captaining at ALL. So THAT was frustrating.
And then, the MESS of Rowan and Felix's platonic / one-sidedly romantic (from Rowan) co-dependant relationship could've been fun, but it was a little weird to me. I wish it had been brought up better during the book to feel less... out of place. I don't mind it when characters try to have a relationship with someone other than The Love Interest when they're in the obvious "it's not working out" phase, but most of the time, I don't lack the execution of that element. This was one such case.
I love the best friends to lovers and I like it when it's paired with angst and second chance. I loved the potential of teenage Theo & Rowan, but the whole miscommunication (paired with my personal disbelief, as I mentioned above, of WHY they split up in the first place), and the almost immediate "back together" was not it for me. I did like the mutual "I'll care for you if you need me even though I hate you", that always hits!
So yep, cute couple but a frustrating lack of development of the rest of the cast as well as a boring resolution.
I really wanted to like this, liked the premise but as the story unfolded, it did nothing to me. Pissed me off a bit. At first, I was living for Theo's pettiness. Like you go, boy, be a dysfunctional, mean adult! And then it got old. He was just an asshole and nothing changed and the story does not properly convey the reasons why Theo & Rowan stopped talking in the first place. Like sure, we get the facts, I guess, but the gravity of them don't really come through. They were everything to each other back when they were in minors, and I am not very convinced by why they grew apart, I didn't really understand the resentment. From the facts alone, I can see why they drifted apart, but the narration didn't sell it to me.
Another thing that pissed me off is the lack of friendship. I love hockey romances because my favourite come with a fun, dynamic side cast, often a found family-adjacent trope that I love. The others just don't really care to dive into the team dynamics and that's something that is lacking to me. Vic is Theo's closest friend and we don't get a single meaningful conversation between them. He is just dating the whole time and of course that means he cannot be a friend, even at times he SHOULD have been there. He is the captain, and he did NO captaining at ALL. So THAT was frustrating.
And then, the MESS of Rowan and Felix's platonic / one-sidedly romantic (from Rowan) co-dependant relationship could've been fun, but it was a little weird to me. I wish it had been brought up better during the book to feel less... out of place. I don't mind it when characters try to have a relationship with someone other than The Love Interest when they're in the obvious "it's not working out" phase, but most of the time, I don't lack the execution of that element. This was one such case.
I love the best friends to lovers and I like it when it's paired with angst and second chance. I loved the potential of teenage Theo & Rowan, but the whole miscommunication (paired with my personal disbelief, as I mentioned above, of WHY they split up in the first place), and the almost immediate "back together" was not it for me. I did like the mutual "I'll care for you if you need me even though I hate you", that always hits!
So yep, cute couple but a frustrating lack of development of the rest of the cast as well as a boring resolution.
writtenechoes's review
No rating. I absolutely adore Hannah. All of the books in this series have been 4-5 solid stars for me. Empty Netter is one of my fave books in 2023. But this didn’t have the same charm as Hannah’s other novels did.
Rowan and Theo meet in juniors, fall in love, and are together without the label. Rowan is drafted to the NHL while Theo stays with the OHL. There’s the inevitable break up hence this being a second chance romance. 8 years later Rowan signs with Theo’s San Jose team. This didn’t work for me because there was too much lack of communication for the majority of this novel. Frustrating to me. Finally once they cleared the air all was fine and forgiven. Another thing that didn’t work for me was Rowan’s friend Felix. They were basically dating but Felix was “straight”. I wanted to not hear his name anymore at a certain point
Rowan and Theo meet in juniors, fall in love, and are together without the label. Rowan is drafted to the NHL while Theo stays with the OHL. There’s the inevitable break up hence this being a second chance romance. 8 years later Rowan signs with Theo’s San Jose team. This didn’t work for me because there was too much lack of communication for the majority of this novel. Frustrating to me. Finally once they cleared the air all was fine and forgiven. Another thing that didn’t work for me was Rowan’s friend Felix. They were basically dating but Felix was “straight”. I wanted to not hear his name anymore at a certain point
alexisisreading's review
Offensive Edge is a second chance romance of Theo Lane and Rowan Foley, two hockey players who met during their juniors. The two had more than friends type of situationship but with the upcoming NHL draft there was a lot of pressure on both to be selected. Rowan ends up being picked first and heads right off to an NHL team meanwhile Theo’s road to the NHL is not as direct but he does also eventually get there. With Rowan in the NHL their friendship begins to fade away. They are forced to face one another when Rowan signs to the same team as Theo and play together after almost a decade of being apart.
Second chance romance is one of my favorite tropes…but unfortunately it just didn’t work for me here. I want to preface this review by saying that Hannah Henry is truly one of my favorite authors currently and prior to this book, this series has been 4-5 stars for me and I absolutely will be reading the next and final book - Theo and Rowan just were two characters I didn’t connect with.
I think my main issue was I couldn’t really grasp why the two stopped talking in the first place. First, Theo finds a letter from Rowan the night of the draft (which is never addressed after that first chapter I don’t think) and assumes it’s a goodbye. Then, Rowan was constantly reaching out during his first season, and while I do understand Theo’s bitterness that Rowan was living their NHL dream while he wasn’t, I don’t think Theo needed to be as mean as he was to Rowan when he first signed with the Serpents. Their getting back together arc also just didn’t feel very romantic? I wasn’t entirely sure why either of them liked the other in the first place. I think second chance romance needs a little bit of angst for it to hit just right and this book was too light that it didn’t have that yearning kind of second chance.
*I received an arc and this is my honest review.
nikkisue's review
5.0
I LOVED THIS BOOK! I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - Hannah Henry knows how to write characters that are extremely human and stories that feel incredibly grounded in reality. Following Theo and Rowan’s journeys back to each other felt like a privilege. The intimacy between them and the buildup was so beautifully done. Just soft and slow. Real and raw.
Let us not forget to talk about the hockey depictions in this book. It’s so hard to find well-written hockey in the hockey romance genre and yet Hannah Henry hits it out of the park every time (forgive me for mixing my sports metaphors). From shift minutes to hockey superstitions, the hockey alone was 5/5 stars.
So this book had everything:
Accurate depictions of hockey gameplay, childhood best friends to enemies to lovers, hockey superstition, ace spectrum representation, bisexual representation, a Stanley Cup run, the homoerotic no-homo hockey culture, the reuniting of two people with their person, accurate depiction of shift minutes (iykyk), exhaustion from playoff hockey, a “straight” best friend, a petty king, a queer platonic codependent relationship, hurt/comfort, pottery painting as a metaphor, queer people calling each other gay while simultaneously doing the actual gayest shit, the curse of the President’s Trophy, declarations on par with the Doctor’s “if i believe in anything, it’s her” from the Satan Pit episode of Doctor Who, NHLers playing injured, drunken love confessions caught in 4K, keepers of the Stanley Cup, and much more.
I cannot recommend this book or the entire Delay of Game series enough if you’re a fan of the hockey romance genre.
_______________________________________________
(Connor McDavid reading this book knowing he still hasn’t won a Cup but relating to Rowan’s hockey journey: “wish that were me.”)
Ratings:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book fundamentally changed my chemical makeup
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book was really good and i loved it
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book was fine and was fun to read
⭐️⭐️ - this book was fine and i didn’t really like it
⭐️ - i would not recommend this book to anyone
Let us not forget to talk about the hockey depictions in this book. It’s so hard to find well-written hockey in the hockey romance genre and yet Hannah Henry hits it out of the park every time (forgive me for mixing my sports metaphors). From shift minutes to hockey superstitions, the hockey alone was 5/5 stars.
So this book had everything:
Accurate depictions of hockey gameplay, childhood best friends to enemies to lovers, hockey superstition, ace spectrum representation, bisexual representation, a Stanley Cup run, the homoerotic no-homo hockey culture, the reuniting of two people with their person, accurate depiction of shift minutes (iykyk), exhaustion from playoff hockey, a “straight” best friend, a petty king, a queer platonic codependent relationship, hurt/comfort, pottery painting as a metaphor, queer people calling each other gay while simultaneously doing the actual gayest shit, the curse of the President’s Trophy, declarations on par with the Doctor’s “if i believe in anything, it’s her” from the Satan Pit episode of Doctor Who, NHLers playing injured, drunken love confessions caught in 4K, keepers of the Stanley Cup, and much more.
I cannot recommend this book or the entire Delay of Game series enough if you’re a fan of the hockey romance genre.
_______________________________________________
(Connor McDavid reading this book knowing he still hasn’t won a Cup but relating to Rowan’s hockey journey: “wish that were me.”)
Ratings:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book fundamentally changed my chemical makeup
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book was really good and i loved it
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - this book was fine and was fun to read
⭐️⭐️ - this book was fine and i didn’t really like it
⭐️ - i would not recommend this book to anyone
mmromancereviewed's review
4.0
Delay of Game... delay of gratification - Offensive Edge is a long slow tease building to steam at about the 75% mark, so if you're one of those people that want instant action, this isn't the book for you. These two men start off, one as clueless and the other full of animosity and until the clueless one starts to understand, we see the pining, the questioning and the fear...
I would definitely class this as a New Adult read - even though the men are several years into their NHL careers, it still feels like they have a lot of adulting to learn and we see some of the transitions in this book, which makes it a compelling read.
There is good hockey, fun side characters and a tease for book 6!
I would definitely class this as a New Adult read - even though the men are several years into their NHL careers, it still feels like they have a lot of adulting to learn and we see some of the transitions in this book, which makes it a compelling read.
There is good hockey, fun side characters and a tease for book 6!
betiarias76's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25