THE KENNEDY RULE by K C Carmichael

5* Don't let the naff cover put you off one of the best, organic-feeling-and-reading hockey romances out there.

Being a Brit, I don't get the American or Canadian love of hockey, nor know the rules of the sport, other than people get hurt, and slamming players around seems to be permitted. And that there are sin bins, like in rugby, but without the gentleman'ship. I didn't expect much from this book but there's not that much to read right now, so I took a chance on it. Thankfully it was what I'd call 'hockey lite' and story rich. I pretty much barely put it down once I'd started.

W.O.W. What a great read. Organic feeling. Organic reading. With a 'baddie' lead and the great dad who raised him. With a sweet 'nice guy' lead, sadly with an arsehole of a 'father' who 'raise' him. For 'raised him', read shamed him. And bullied him. And blackmailed him. All the horrible stuff that he did had me wanting him to get his comeuppance, but sadly,that wasn't on page. I'm pretty sure that he'd fallen from grace by the end of the book, though. 

The romance was surprisingly sweet and the 'baddie' turned out to be a protector. With protective and supportive teammates, and supportive guys on the Olympics team. Were this the case in the sport IRL! Grumpy guy's dad was such a sweetie. I wish mine had been this guy. 

The ending was one of the best bits of the tale, with decent people who upheld equality, and what's right, that fought against what was clearly being orchestrated out of revenge, and illegally, as it turned out. The woman behind the man in this part of the tale was quietly kickarse brilliant. The guys end up together believably. Whilst there wasn't the cherry on the cake that I like in a romance, I left the leads knowing that this was the start of their HEA.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Storm Publishing, for my reading pleasure.

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