I love the premise of this book, and I love the first 40-50%, but after that it's much more tell rather than show and I just find myself wanting something more to happen.

There's no resolution with the parent issues, it's very anticlimactic. and the last part of the book just doesn't actually have enough of them and their relationship. also one of my biggest pet peeves is when authors decide that after 2 sex scenes once the characters get together no more are needed. no showing of affection or physical touch, just lots of 'oh yeah they had lots of sex'. ugh.

this book should have been at least another 50 pages longer to flesh out their actual relationship and have a better ending. ( )

As someone who has never played any sport in my life, I still can’t figure out my fascination for sports romances, especially hockey because I hardly know anything about it. But they just make me insanely happy and this book was no different.

I remember reading the first book in this series and liking it but it’s been a while, so I didn’t go in with a lot of expectations. I just wanted to have fun and this author duo gave me that. I haven’t read any other books by Piper Vaughn but I have really enjoyed other hockey romances by Avon Gale and this one has a very similar feel. The writing is so easy to get through right from the beginning and I flew through the book in a single sitting. The authors do such a wonderful job making us root for this enemies to lovers to friends to more romance and I just couldn’t get enough. There is also a lot of focus on the game itself, it’s pressures, the camaraderie of the team etc and I loved reading about it all. Even the conflict felt very realistic and made me all emotional. This love story has more like an HFN but it feels very organic to the characters themselves and I also liked that coming out was never a point of contention.

Its amazing to see two protagonists of color in a sport like hockey which is majority white. Ryu is Japanese American who is very reserved, driven, a perfectionist who expects too much from himself. Emmitt on the other hand is Black, who has a faced a lot of prejudice but has never let it get to him and has finally arrived at the NHL. He is also supremely confident, a bit cocky and loves posting shirtless selfies on his insta. They are just so different from each other and competing for the starting goalie puts them at odds, but there were too many sparks flying to be ignored. I loved how they slowly became friends and realized they had feelings for each other despite not wanting to. It was kinda sweet watching them together, bringing out the best in each other on the ice, and also bonding over the immense parental pressures they have faced.

I absolutely loved the team camaraderie here too. Even though I don’t remember much from the first book, it was cool seeing Tristan and Seb together, just being all sappy and adorable. Tristan is the nicest guy ever and Seb is a force of nature and I really wanna reread their book now. Morley is another defenseman who was a prominent side character and he was annoying at first with his typical dudebro attitude and just making offensive jokes all the time. But I quickly realized he is a great friend, just with a puerile sense of humor. He is also not a fan of labeling his sexuality but doesn’t seem to discriminate between genders and I didn’t expect him to be so open and accepting about it. I have a feeling he is going to be the protagonist of the next book and I can’t wait.

To conclude, this was a fun, intense and emotional love story which had both hockey and romance in equal measures and I loved it all. I laughed, I cried and I didn’t want it to end - what more can I expect from a lovely book. If you like sports romances, then I definitely recommend this book. This works perfectly well as a stand-alone too but I think you should also read the first. I hope the wait for the next book in the series won’t be as long as this time. ( )

I said this after the first book but I truly adore hockey romances, especially when they're done well and have a lot of hockey in it - it's like I'm in the game but not and it's amazing. The worldbuilding for the Venom is just amazing to me, the whole team and everything about them.

My brother was a goalie through is school years and I know what hard work and how hard they work to get where they are, and some of the descriptions in this book are so on par it's unreal.

I loved Ryu he was my favourite side in the first book and I'm so glad I got to continue on with his story - he seemed so father figure and rigid and I'm glad to see Emmitt was so good at bantering with him - I loved the relationship progression of course, it felt smooth and easy.

Hockey fans/steamy romance fans ..definitely check out this book it's 5/5 hockey pucks for sure! ( )

I remember how exciting it was to watch hockey when I was growing up, and this novel brought a bit of that back! Ryu Mori and Emmitt Armstrong are competing goalies on the Venoms hockey team! Young, cocky and talented – Emmitt is the kind of guy that Ryu wants to roll his eyes at. Emmitt posts thirsty selfies on Instagram and always seems to be up for a party. Once he’s firmly embedded as Ryu’s competition in goal the tension amps up between them… until it borders on hostility.

Tension… naturally leads to sexual tension, right? It does in this case. In spite of the fact that they seem to rub each other the wrong way, Ryu and Emmitt quickly end up in a physical relationship that’s supposed to have no strings. The problem is that they are still competing for the spot as starting goalie… and the more time they spend together, the more complicated their feelings seem to become. Being emotionally connected to one another is a real issue as the competition for the play-offs continues to pit them against one another and they are faced with wondering if they can even be together.

This book is set in a magical world where there are more than a few players on the hockey team who are living diverse lifestyles, and you have to be able to suspend your disbelief a little when reading. Any time one of the hockey players comes out, the reactions from everyone on the team and fairy-tale perfect… and while I appreciate that this is fiction, I found that a little unrealistic. Homophobia in the sports world is still a very serious problem and this plot kind of glosses over that issue.

I thought the authors did a great job of exploring how it feels to have parents with high expectations. Both the main characters in this novel deal with a parent who isn’t overly supportive of their career choice. One of the things that read as really authentic in the relationship between Ryu and Emmitt was the way they were able to connect as they discussed feelings about not living up to their family’s expectations.

Overall, this is a great story that definitely brings the excitement of hockey to the page and teams it up with a very spicy relationship between two goalies! Don’t worry, you don’t have to know a lot about hockey to read this story! Just the basic positions will do fine! Although not for Ryu and Emmitt!! 😉 ( )

"Enemies" to lovers, but almost no angst, which makes it a little bit dry for my personal liking. still good book though ( )