Thank you to Helena Hunting and her team for the advance reader copy of If You Hate Me, the first story in Helena’s brand new hockey series The Toronto Terror.
When Helena began to tease her triumphant return to hockey romance, I could not be more excited for her to kick off a new series. I adore her hockey romances and am so excited to have a Toronto-set hockey romance. This book is perfect for existing and new fans of Helena’s work alike who want their hockey romance scorchingly hot but also laugh-out-loud funny.
I am a Helena Hunting review team member, but I remain honest and genuine in my reviews.
A brand new standalone hate-to-love, brother’s best friend hockey romance.
My new roommates are two pro hockey players.
First, my manwhore older brother, and second, his seriously hot best friend (who I seriously hate).
This was a last resort.
No one should be sleeping on a futon that smells like Cheetos and ball sweat.
But here I am, trying to get my life together.
Tristan Stiles is the bane of my existence.
He never wears a shirt.
We can’t seem to stop fighting.
He’s an arrogant playboy with a filthy reputation.
Sure, I had a crush on him when I was fourteen, but that was a long time ago.
I know better than to trust him.
I just need to survive long enough to find a new job and get a new place.
And not accidentally let Tristan rail me into next week.
Check out my more detailed thoughts below…
- Characters: Beatrix and Tristan are the lead characters and when we meet them they hate each other. Tristan is a hockey player on the same team as Beatrix’s brother Flip and the boys are also roommates. Beatrix, or Trix ends up moving in when she needs to get out of her unsafe apartment the only problem is that she and Tristan hate each other. The early part of the book has them bickering and playing tricks on one another, but over time the facades they put up melt away. Tristan has such a sweetness in him and I loved when Trix brought that out. It would be rude to not mention how many wonderful side characters Helena introduces from the other hockey players to the group of girls Trix befriends, it is the girls, especially with their heartwarming found family that will have readers begging for future instalments.
- Setting: I was ecstatic to start this and see Helena set a book in Toronto! She lives in the GTA and rarely writes about her home, even rarer for us to get hockey romances set in Canada so I loved the Canadian touch this one had.
- Pacing: I did find the beginning of this book a little slow and it took me a few characters to be invested in why Trix and Tristan hated each other. Warning you as well that it is decently chunky so it did take me quite a few hours to read, but at the same time, I was having such a wonderful time with all the characters and having a longer book did set up many potential future books to look forward to.
- Romance: Helena announced a while ago that this was the spiciest book she had ever written, and after reading the vast majority of her backlist I was super intrigued to see what she was going to throw at us readers. All I can say is after I read Chapter 12 (winky face and I am never looking at a cucumber the same way again) I understood why this was Helena’s steamiest yet! I adored all of it from the crazy spice to the Helena Hunting signature sometimes out-of-pocket banter. It is hard not to cheer on Tristan and Beatrix as they sneak around her brother and deny the depth of their feelings for each other. For all the talk of spice and banter, this book is quite emotional and I welled up at times when Trix and Tristan were navigating how they could be together. The tension, sparks, and chemistry are off the charts so this is an essential read for hockey romance fans everywhere!
If You Hate Me receives 4.5/5 stars.
You can pick up the story below…
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Thank you again to Helena and her team for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
