Anastasia Allen has worked her entire life for a shot at Team USA.

A competitive figure skater since she was five years old, a full college scholarship thanks to her place on the Maple Hills skating team, and a schedule that would make even the most driven person weep, Stassie comes to win.

No exceptions.

Nathan Hawkins has never had a problem he couldn’t solve. As captain of the Maple Hills Titans, he knows the responsibility of keeping the hockey team on the ice rests on his shoulders.

When a misunderstanding results in the two teams sharing a rink, and Anastasia’s partner gets hurt in the aftermath, Nate finds himself swapping his stick for tights, and one scary coach for an even scarier one.

The pair find themselves stuck together in more ways than one, but it’s fine, because Anastasia doesn’t even like hockey players…right?

Icebreaker (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Audible.com) (AbeBooks)

Once again, I was recommended a book by several sources and apparently is all the rage on Book Tok and I used an Audible credit after reading the book description but without reading any reviews. If you enjoy an enemies to lovers trope and can deal with plenty of smutty scenes, you’ll love this book. That’s not saying I didn’t enjoy it. However, it was definitely NSFW listening!

This book was not written for a 50-year old, married for 25 years with four teenaged children type of woman. This book was written for horny teens and college-aged kids who want to read about the elite kids in their school. It’s like Danielle Steel for the younger set, with a lot of sex scenes instead of straight-up romance.

Stassie was an interesting character. On one hand, she’s very sure of herself and is a big believer in open communication and expressing her feelings to her friends, yet she puts up with her skating partner’s absolutely terrible treatment of her, so that was a contradiction. On the other hand, she’s very self-assured when it comes to her sexuality and at the start of the book, she’s got a friend-with-benefits who actually wants to stop because he’s getting serious about another girl.

Nathan is the all-around nice guy who actually is also an excellent hockey player so naturally, he’s the captain of the college team. To me, he seemed kind of vanilla, but Stassie doesn’t think so. It’s just a matter of time before they hook up. And not much time at all, to be quite honest.

What I did like about Icebreaker is that Nathan and Anastasia both communicate to each other effectively, so there’s no trope of a big misunderstanding. That crap gets old. And they’re both so well-adjusted considering how both of them are the center of attention on the ice and great things are expected of them.

I wanted to love this book as much as I loved the 1990’s movie The Cutting Edge, but alas, it didn’t give me the same feels. I think this book is fine for someone younger than me, but next time, when a book is all the rage on Tic Tok, I’ll politely move on.

For more reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com

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