Review:
Jake, the Brighton Tynes University hockey team's goalie, is immediately drawn to Jordan when he sees her at Rookies Sports Bar. Then he learns that she's the twin sister of one of his teammates, and therefore off-limits. Even so, he can't stop thinking about her. It doesn't help that she happens to live right next door, and their adorable youngest siblings are friends.
After the way things turned out with Tommy, her ex, Jordan has promised her brothers that she'll never date one of their teammates again. Then she meets Jake, and her resolve falters.
Alley Ciz was one of the authors I met at the most recent Book Bonanza. I was drawn to her books' illustrated covers (this book credits "Sea J" for the cover art). Her table included "reading order" cards and character relationship charts. Although Savage Queen's cover grabbed my attention the most, Power Play sounded like a better starting point, so that's what I opted for.
As much as I loved those illustrated covers, I doubt I'll be trying any other entries in this series or the various related series. Neither the writing nor the characters worked for me here.
According to the copyright info, this had both a proofreader and an editor. It wasn't enough. Someone needs to teach this author about proper comma usage. All throughout the book, there were sentences that didn't have commas when they should have had them, and sentences that had commas where semicolons (or a full rewrite) would have been a better choice.
I could have put up with that if the characters and story had been better. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Considering how few truly necessary scenes there were, this could easily have been a short story. I was expecting more scenes in which Jordan and Jake got to know each other, started to fall for each other, and worried about how those around them would react if they got together. There was also a surprise (not mentioned in the blurb) "learning how to trust again" aspect that could/should have gotten more page-time - Jordan's previous boyfriend not only cheated on her but seriously physically injured her after she broke up with him (I had huge issues with the way this part was handled, but more on that later).
Instead of focusing on the romance, however, the book was filled with "college social life" bloat. Endless pages about all of the friends Jordan was thrilled to spend time with, their time at the bar, their parties. I did not need multiple pages devoted to a game of beer pong and explanations of another drinking game one of Jordan's friends thought they should all play. None of the characters seemed able to spend more than a few minutes quiet and alone.
Some of this would have been fine - Jordan was a social butterfly, and Jake spent a lot of time around his teammates, and readers did need to see that on-page. But there was so much, and after a while I realized none of it was contributing anything new or useful to the story. Meanwhile, Jake and Jordan's romance was one sweet scene in a hammock and lots of instances of the author telling us "he/she is hot, sure, but it's more than that" without putting in any of the necessary work.
And ugh, the Tommy storyline. Jordan blamed herself for the way her brothers' hockey team sucked after she and Tommy broke up and he was kicked off the team. Near the end of the book, readers learn that Tommy was kicked off the team because he hit Jordan when she broke up with him, and then pushed her down the stairs, leading to a dislocated shoulder and a bad cut on her face. Jordan's brothers always reassured her that no one blamed her for the way the team sucked later, but all the focus on Jordan being off-limits to their hockey teammates indicated that they didn't actually understand that it was 100% Tommy who was the problem.
I also refuse to believe that there were no prior signs of what Tommy was really like - even if Jordan didn't see it, Tommy's teammates would have, in the way he spoke to and treated the women around him. Then again, that might have required some self-reflection over the way others on the team treated women who weren't related to the players or friends of the players' family members (for example, the "puck bunnies").
All in all, the cover was the best thing about this.
Extras:
A Spotify playlist.
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