Head Coach by Lia Riley
Series: Hellions Angels, #2
Contemporary Sports Romance
November 21, 2017
Avon Impulse
Reviewed by Kini
So I read the first book in this series earlier this year and I liked it just fine. I have read several others by this author and enjoyed them. I was looking forward to this book because surly grumpy heroes are something I love. Unfortunately, this book lets et me down in so many ways.
The blurb says this is an enemies to lovers story. And I guess the case could be made for that. Tor is the head coach of a hockey team. Neve is a sports journalist with a concentration only on hockey, as no other sport is ever mentioned. Anyway, they are enemies, except this is never really backed up. They have one bristly exchange early on but it wasn’t enough for me to believe they were enemies.
The enemies quickly fades and they end up going on a trip together. Tor needs a date to his ex-wife’s wedding. He’s closed off after his divorce because he was hurt, but has mostly moved on from the divorce. I was super excited I thought it might be a little fake relationship, but that’s not the case. Then at the hotel they had to share a room, so I was again excited because forced proximity is another one of my favorites. Forced to share a bedroom always reminds me of the Who’s the Boss episode where Tony and Angela had to share a motel room, but I digress. Anyway, forced spaces with enemies to lovers usually results in some firecrackers going off. Tor and Neve did give in to their desires and have sex, but I just wasn’t feeling the chemistry.
I think this book had little dabbles in to things/story arcs/plot points, but didn’t seem to follow through on many. The hotel they stayed in might have been haunted and only those in true love will see the ghosts (insert eye roll). Anyway that was mentioned like twice and thankfully did not come up again when the MCs were on the cusp of being in love. Tor’s daughter Olive is a borderline plot moppet who was not fully fleshed out and felt like an underdeveloped plot device. Olive causes some drama that Tor doesn’t buy into, but he still allows Olive to behave badly, it was really weird. There’s also this thing in the hotel that it may be haunted but only those in true love will notice it. It felt like it was thrown in and definitely could have been cut from the story and absolutely nothing would have changed. Another underdeveloped plot point was the fact that Neve and Tor had been unknowingly communicating with each other via an app similar to Waze. I would have LOVED to have seen that last longer and explored more. But they discover it quickly and would have played nicely into the enemies (if I had believed that) who are unknowingly nice to each other.
All in all I did not enjoy this story. I felt like I was missing something throughout the whole book. Nothing felt fully developed, I never believed in them being enemies and then never believed in what would attract them to each other. The best part of the book was so pretty hot and heavy sexy times. The next book features a VIRGIN HERO, so my dislike and disconnect from this story will not prevent me from reading that.
Grade: D
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