Kristie J’s review of Head Coach (Hellions Angels, Book 2) by Lia Riley
Contemporary Romance published by Avon Impulse 9 Jan 18
I enjoyed the first book in this series, Mister Hockey, enough to continue reading. But when this book came out, the price was more than I was willing to pay. So I decided to wait until the third book released. When it did, and after I purchased it – review to come – I went back to check Head Coach again, because it just seems wrong to read the first and third book in a series and not the second. Much to my delight, it’s on sale for $1.99, so I scooped it up, electronically speaking, lickety split. It’s not necessary to have read the first book, but it helps.
Tor Gunnar, whom we first met in Mister Hockey, is the head coach of the Denver Hellions, a pro hockey team in the NHL. Looks like the league is headed for a strike, which will put Tor at loose ends. He lives and breathes hockey. He’s divorced and adores his ten-year-old daughter, but other than that it’s hockey. While I wouldn’t call him a gruff teddy bear type hero, he’s more of an offshoot. He has very few friends and mostly keeps to himself. He figures his passion for hockey was a large part of the end of his marriage and he doesn’t want to do it again.
His nemesis and the bane of his existence is our heroine, Neve Angel, sports reporter for the Denver Hellions extraordinaire. She is the sister to the heroine in the first book and played rather a large part there. She and Tor have chemistry but mostly of the negative type. She tries getting scoops and he refuses to give them. In one exchange he’s quite curt with her and even says something quite hurtful.
Now, unfortunately for both of them, they are thrown together because Jed West, hero of the first book, is one of Tor’s few friends and his love, Breezy Angel, is Neve’s sister. A slow, very slow, thaw begins. In fact, when Neve loses a bet to Tor, his prize is she goes with him as his guest to his ex’s wedding.
I liked this book and the $1.99 was money well spent. Tor is a terse but a good guy underneath kind of hero. He’s loyal, and though he and his ex didn’t work out together, they do work together for their daughter. It’s nice not to have an ex that’s not a villainess. He recognizes his faults and is looking to improve them.
Neve is good too. She’s tough as nails on the outside but full of insecurities on the inside. I liked ‘meeting’ her in this book due to the fact she came across as quite the ball buster in the first book. In this book, though, we see her heart.
Before reading this one I did a reread of Mister Hockey and it still came out a little ahead of this book – but only a little.
Grade: B-
Summary:
Neve Angel’s life is all work and no play, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. One of Denver’s top sports reporters, she’s fought hard to make it in a male-dominated world, and she won’t back down from a fight with anyone–not even the Hellions’ gruff head coach, Tor Gunnar. Her hostile relationship with the icy Scandinavian is the stuff of local legend.
Tor Gunnar hates dealing with the media; at best, they are a nuisance and at worst, a distraction. And no one distracts him more than the scrappy, sexy reporter who gets him hot under the collar. When he wins a not-so-friendly bet with Neve, he decides it’s high time they either kiss or kill each other, and invites her as a date to an out-of-town wedding.
But what happens when enemies become lovers? Will they be able to smother their sizzling attraction, or is it time to start playing for keeps?
No excerpt available.
Other books in this series:
