Three out of Five Stars
The Summary: Tristan Holt is nothing if not pragmatic. Despite a flourishing career as a defenseman for the Atlanta Venom, Tristan knows he can’t play hockey forever. One day he’ll retire—if an injury doesn’t force him to hang up his skates first. His backup plan? Finishing his business degree. But he doesn’t count on a very inappropriate attraction to his standoffish sociology professor, Sebastian Cruz.
Sebastian is on the bottom rung of the Sociology Department at Georgia State. He has his sights set on tenure, and he can’t afford to be distracted, especially not by a sexy student with a body straight out of Sebastian’s dreams. No matter how much Tristan tempts him, that’s one line Sebastian won’t cross. At least not until summer classes end. After that, everything is fair game.
But Sebastian lives loud and proud, and Tristan is terrified of being the first out player in the NHL. Neither of them can afford to risk their hearts when they can’t imagine a happily ever after. The problem is, unlike hockey, when it comes to love, there are no rules.
The Review
There were things I really enjoyed about this book, and then there were things that had me skimming through some of the scenes just to get past it. First I’ll say that there are elements in the books that if I would have known about them, I would have probably not given this a read. But I did and it might be your thing.
Tristan meet Sebastien while he’s taking a summer course at the local college. Sebastien is his sociology teacher and sparks fly between the two of them throughout the semester. They did wait until after the class was over to pursue anything. It was also pretty amusing that Sebastien had no clue who he was teaching until a colleague pointed it out to him.
I feel like there was not enough time between Tristan and Sebastien getting to know each other. This felt like it was all about the sex between the two men. And that’s fine as long as it balances out and I feel like it didn’t. The pair communicated about their wants and needs in concerns to sex, but the rest of their communication was do what Sebastien wants or there is no more relationship. It was frustrating to me, especially seeing that this was an age-gap romance as well.
Now spoiler, there are BDSM elements, humiliation and consensual spanking/hitting. That’s just not my cup of tea.
What I did like, was despite all of that there were moments that had me all heart eyes. Like Tristan bringing Sebastien to meet his family. I loved seeing Sebastien at the game, having hockey nerves that every fan experiences, and learning more about Tristan’s work. For someone who didn’t like sports, he tried to learn and be supportive of Tristan.
So I have mixed feelings about this book. Will I read the next in the series? Probably. I typically like this author duo. This one was just a miss.
