Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟  Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

by Grace Reilly

This book epitomizes “Awww…what a cute cover, OMG…what am I reading?” If you like spicy sports romance books with plot and heart, this is for you. I’m going to be honest, this was A LOT and outside my comfort zone, but I really did like the story that can be found underneath all of the spice.

Cooper is an NHL-bound college hockey player who needs to get his emotions in check if he wants to make captain. Not only is he off his game on the ice, but the guy who never had trouble getting girls is in an unprecedented dry spell. Penny is studying to be a physical therapist but really wants to be a writer. Once a figure skater, her college job is teaching youth skating lessons. When the hockey coach assigns Cooper to the same youth instruction group to help him cool his temper on the ice, Cooper and Penny end up “connecting” in the equipment room. Only afterward does Cooper discover Penny is the coach’s daughter. Oh, and she has a spicy bucket list and needs a willing partner.

The second in the Beyond the Play series, this book has excellent storylines about complex relationships between parents and children and a powerful storyline about overcoming broken trust in past relationships to find happiness. I love a good sports romance, and the world that Reilly has created is a great one with multi-dimensional characters, fun plots, and witty banter.