Pucked

Violet Hall has a stepbrother in the NHL, so she knows what hockey stars are supposed to be like. She has watched the playboy reputation up close, and she has no interest in Alex Waters, the team captain, whatever his battered face and hard-muscled body promise.

Then Alex proves her assumption that hockey players are dim to be wrong. He becomes more than a good-looking athlete to her, and in a lapse of judgment she spends a night with him. Violet files it away as exactly that: one night, and nothing more.

Alex does not file it away. He phones, texts and emails, and he sends gifts that are extravagant and a little odd. He gets harder to ignore, and harder not to like. What stands in the way is the press, which paints him as a man who plays the field, and Violet does not want to be one more piece in his game.

This is a contemporary sports romance with a comic, flirty tone. It follows an opposites-attract setup, with a reluctant heroine and a persistent hero. Expect open, explicit scenes and a steamy read that leans on banter and a will-they-won't-they push and pull over whether she can trust his reputation.