Chesterford Coyotes #1
A coming-of-age love story with high school, hockey rivalry, friendship, family, and coming out.
Soren’s life changes in an instant when he and his younger brother are adopted by hockey royalty. Making sense of his new life is hard enough, but when he’s enrolled in a private school it means facing a whole new set of problems. Navigating friendship, family, and hockey is one thing, but being attracted to the boy who vexes him is a whole new thing..
Felix has a reputation to protect. He's the kid who seems to have everything but looks can be deceiving. Spinning lies about his perfect life, he’s created a fantasy world that even he has started to believe. Only, it’s not long before everything crumbles, all of his pretty lies are revealed, and only his closest rival sees through his pain and stands by him.
Fighting is easy, friendship is hard, but love is everything.
There are 2 types of a**hole characters in fiction:
1. The truly evil bad guy that you are left salivating over the idea of their hopefully very painful demise.
2. The good guy with a very weighty chip on their shoulder that you know will soften and grow but still want to smack with an iron skillet to the back of the head at times.
Felix falls under #2. Oh how I wanted to knock some sense into him on many occasions BUT I also knew he had to get there on his own to fully grow. Authors can't help him, it's his journey and knowingly or cluelessly, he controls the timeline😉. There were enough hints throughout his inner monologues that made me empathize with him but in no way excused his actions. Soren on the other hand is all kinds of adorableness. Having read Perfect Gifts in the authors' Harrisburg Railers series, I was aware of Soren's background and how he and his brother, Milo, came to be in the Madsen-Rowe household. So I watched a very similar but not equal chip disappear from the teenager's shoulder previously. There will always be hints of said chip there considering his journey to Ten & Jared's door but he understands it and has learned to cope, making him older than his years yet still very much a teenager.
Put these two lads together and the chemistry is undeniable but it's not easy. It's Scott and Locey so you know the HEA is a foregone conclusion but the journey getting there is where the fun is. I'll admit there are times when you doubt wanting Felix to find that HEA but then he does or says something that surprises you, course then there is the one thing(and no I'm not telling what that is) that breaks your heart instantly because it appears to show a backward slide in his growth. Sometimes one needs to be shattered to finally find perspective and that's what happens to Felix and things slowly but realistically change. I know that sounds very vague but I don't want to spoil anything, just because we know it'll end in HEA doesn't mean we know what they win and lose to get there.
Now I mentioned Railers entry, Perfect Gifts above being where we are introduced to Soren and Milo and though I highly recommend reading, at the very least the Ten/Jared entries in that series first, it's not a must. You won't be lost if you start with Off the Ice. It's just a personal need to read character growth in progression so that my heart can fully connect to said characters, but that's just me.
Truth is, with a few exceptions(Little House and Anne of Green Gables books that I shared with my grandmother) I haven't read too many young adult stories since I was 12 or 13. At that time I read Judy Blume's Forever after which I went straight from Blume to Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel, LaVyrle Spencer, and a few Jackie Collins. . . in terms of reading lets just say I grew up very quickly. I mention this because I can't honestly compare Off the Ice to other YA stories in the LGBTQ genre in regards to handling pure adolescent narratives. What I can compare it to is the beauty in which Scott & Locey have written the characters' natural, realistic, and completely relatable growth that makes a good story great.
Honestly? I think the fact that I don't seek out YA genre and still loved every word of Off the Ice speaks more volume to the amazingness of the story than anything else I could put in to words so maybe I'll just end my review with that sentiment.
Just as I was thinking of Felix’s face meeting a fist, he shot to his feet, gave Tyler a shove, and jumped on the smaller guy when Tyler fell off the bench to the floor. I reacted instantly, and was into the fray in a second, rolling Felix off Tyler with a body check that would have cleared any of the Railers off their skates. Not really, but it sounded boss. Tyler was smaller than most, a speed demon on ice, but we protected him—I protected him.
“Get the fuck off me!” Felix snarled, swinging at me as we grappled for control. He was strong, about my height and weight, but I had the advantage. Or I thought I did. He swung back in a flash, clocking me in the mouth. My front teeth dug into my lower lip, and I tasted blood, which kind of pissed me off. We wrestled around amid shouts from our teammates until I managed to get him under control. Mostly.
He was splayed out on the floor, his face pressed into a pair of wet sneakers lying in front of a locker. I put my knee into his back while the other guys scrambled to get Tyler on his feet.
“What the hell, Sinclair?” I barked down at Felix. We never used our full last names, not since he’d decided that having gay days meant I didn’t deserve to inherit both last names. Whatever. He hated that I responded in kind and that was just one more point against the freaking idiot.
“Get off my back, Rowe!” he snarled, adding something else to the comment, which was hard to make out since his face was jammed into a skanky, soggy grey and black Nike belonging to one of the guys who had run here across the sodden field hockey field. Caleb had kicked them off to wring out his socks but had yet to dress his smelly feet yet. Caleb liked to hear us complain about his foot stink for some reason. Dude was weird.
It sounded like Felix might have used a queer slur, but I couldn’t be sure it was the F-word although I’d heard him use it before. He’d should think twice about using that in front of me. My new family was all kinds of queer, as was I and a few other players. Coach also did not put up with any racist, sexist, or queer slurs. I’d already hit him once, way back, when he started shit about my dads, but that had ended up with me in an office with my new dads and wondering if they were going to send me back in the system.
Of course they hadn’t—they loved me and Milo and wanted us as their sons, along side their daughter. We were family and it was all official and everything. Still the thought that I’d disappoint my dads meant I genuinely tried not to rise to Felix and hit him again.
But he’d jumped Tyler, and that wasn’t right.
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Writing love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee.
(Not necessarily in that order.)
She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
RJ Scott
VL Locey
EMAIL: vicki@vllocey.com
Off the Ice #1
👀Scott & Locey Hockey Universe
will be leaving KU on July 10, 2023👀
Harrisburg Series
Owatonna U Series
Chesterford Coyotes Series
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