Delayed Penalty by Sophia Henry (Pilots Hockey #1)
Contemporary Romance
Released: September 1, 2015
Loveswept
Reviewed by Mandi
Auden has been cut from the soccer team which means she has lost her soccer scholarship and needs to find a summer job quick. She goes back home to her russian grandparents, who raised her, and her grandfather assigns her a job – to be a translator for a russian hockey player. This excites Auden greatly – she loves hockey and although this isn’t for the professional Detroit Red Wings team, it’s for the minor league team and that’s just fine by her. But her job is going to be complicated.
Aleksandr Varenkov can actually speak English, he just doesn’t like to be bothered to be interviewed. When Auden shows up, he decides to initiate her by giving her ridiculous answers to interview questions for her to interpret. Although he gives her a hard time, he grows to like her, fast.
There are many reasons why this book didn’t work for me. First, I love hockey romance. Love. But in this book, hockey is not prominent. If Aleksandr does have a game or practice, those hockey scenes are glossed over quickly. So we miss out on the hockey atmosphere. Aleksandr starts off kind of douchey as he tries to pick up Auden in a bar and then acts like a jerk on her first day at work. I like a jerky hero who turns it around, but he turns it around too fast. He goes from jerk to big, goofy guy like he has a complete personality change.
There isn’t a lot of build up or sexual tension in their romance and they declare love pretty early. The physical romance scenes also were not memorable.
And there is an odd scene where Auden gets drugged at a bar and she ends up blacking out. In the middle of the night, she wakes up (in her own bed) and Aleksandr has climbed through her window completely drunk to make sure she is okay. Auden doesn’t even seem to care that someone drugged her drink. It’s mentioned that Aleksandr punched the guy who did it, but – it’s just a really weird scene. I feel like the gravity of what happened is just tossed to the side.
This story just didn’t come together for me. Auden, by herself, I enjoyed. She is a feisty heroine. I like that she got cut from the soccer team and has to reevaluate her college career. I just didn’t like Aleksandr or how the story plays out.
Grade: D
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