SPOILER ALERT! I'm not in the business of ruining books, so if you haven't read this book yet, turn back now!
Author: Emily Rath
Series: Jacksonville Rays Series book #2
Category: Sports Romance
Rating: ⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
"A naked Tess Owens. Fuck, why is this woman always naked? And why is she here of all places?" - Ryan
What happened here? Seriously, can someone please tell me how we went from Pucking Around to this hodgepodge of a story? Look, I was not expecting literary prose, that is not what a hockey romance lends itself to. But I do expect charming characters, funny banter, and an entertaining plot mixed all together to create a good story. Unfortunately, book two of the Jacksonville Rays series did not live up to the first book despite the hype of its release. This book review was painful to write because I wanted so much more for Tess!
Part of the problem with this book was the length, and much of the extra filler came from wrapping up the first book's characters' love story. The timelines of both books overlap, and while I enjoyed seeing the wedding of our polyamorous couples, I was also ready to move on to Tess and Ryan's story well before we actually made any headway.
Then when we moved on, I kind of wished we had just stuck with Rachel, Jack, Caleb, and Mars.
Tess was a giant hot mess, ironically since she was Rachel's rock in the first book. She is highly educated and smart, but can't seem to figure out her own life. Tess is fabulously sarcastic but she takes it too far sometimes and while not malicious, she hurts people all the same.
"What can I say? I'm an extroverted introvert with truly impressive trust and abandonment issues. But man, do I know how to pick a quality cheese." - Tess
Ryan is a glutton for punishment, letting people walk all over him in the spirit of trying to help them with their own self-made problems. He loses himself in Tess pretty quickly, making her the center of his world no matter how she lashes out. The character was too similar to Jake's golden retriever personality, hell Tess even gives him the nickname "Puppy"...gag.
"The truth is that I'm falling hard for this woman, and from everything I see and feel, she's just...falling. And I don't know how to catch her. I don't know how to make it stop. And she won't give me a goddamn clue." - Ryan
As I've seen others echo, Mars is the real shining star in this book even if he was a secondary character this time around. I adored how patient he was with Tess. He recognized how adrift she was and provided reassurance and a steady presence to her, simply because Tess was Rachel's best friend, and therefore, family.
The age gap trope doesn't bother me at all, but Tess never grew to respect Ryan as an equal and their chemistry never manifested into something tangent. This book gets spicy but since I didn't like either character I wasn't invested enough to stick it out.
DNF at 40% - I couldn't stick it out until the end, with so many books out there, I'd rather not force myself to read something I don't like.
Tropes and Themes: Reverse Age Gap, Sports Romance, Hockey Romance, Forced Proximity, Friends to Lovers.
Blurb
Tess Owens is a confident, 33-year-old plus-sized divorcee daring to start her life over in a new job in a new city. In the process, she meets Ryan Langley, starting forward for the NHL’s Jacksonville Rays. Sure, he’s cute, in a puppy at the beach kind of way. But he’s ten years younger than her, and they have nothing in common.
But to Ryan, Tess is his dream girl. He’s ready to do anything to show her that age doesn’t matter, our pasts don’t define us, and just sometimes, two wrongs can make a right.
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