Sunday, December 7, 2025
🎅🎄Sunday's Sport Stats🎄🎅: Perfect Gifts by RJ Scott & VL Locey
Summary:
Harrisburg Railers #12
Family comes first in all things. Whatever the cost.
Ten had always heard the saying, “Out of the mouths of babes,” but he hadn’t expected it to hit home as it had. After a comment from their daughter, Ten and Jared ponder an addition to the family. Moving into the adoption process is nerve-wracking and riddled with anxiety—kind of the way the Railers have been playing as of late. Bringing two young men into their homes and hearts won’t be a smooth ride. But with patience, humor, and love, the bumpy road might just be a little easier to travel.
Expanding their small family was always in the cards, but no one could have foreseen the process clashing with the worst ever start to a Railers season. A string of losses, a vital player missing from the defense, a captain in the emergency room—and winning a single game seems impossible, let alone getting the team to the playoffs. Faced with hard decisions, Jared refuses to take his work home, but it’s difficult when your husband is at the leading edge of the losing streak. His focus fractures when one sibling they’re matched with is frustrated, angry, and has a healthy dose of mistrust.
Jared and Ten’s parenting skills are tested, but they’ll do anything to make a place in their home the perfect gift for two children lost in the system.
Original Review November 2022:
Gotta start by saying: YAHOO!!!! Another Railers holiday tale!!!!
The authors may have tagged this a Christmas Railers novella but it actually encompasses multiple holidays including Turkey Day and that is a holiday that is rarely touched on, or at least not nearly enough. That right there is worthy of 1 bookmark alone. Being Harrisburg is worthy of another. What gave it the other 3? Read on.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: love, love, LOVE men who care for kids! Seeing Ten and Jared's family grow is so heartwarming, watching them tackle fostering and adoption of older kids turned me into a big puddle of sappy goo. Now that's not to say this leg of the crowned Princes of Scott & Locey's hockey universe is cliche by using the term "sappy" oh no, no, no, no. Sure some moments may seem cliche but that doesn't make it bad. With so many health issues in our family, status quo or cliche, is often a welcomed treat so when I say "sappy" all I'm really saying is "can we bundle those boys in layers and layers of bubblewrap so harm never comes to them?"
Soren and Milo are amazing! Milo is the quintessentially adorably loveable little boy. Soren is the epitome of "give me your best shot and I'll tell you what for" chip on his shoulder older brother. Some might say Soren is a little brat but not me, what I see is a scared boy having to be older than his years to protect his little brother. He's thrown for a loop when he meets Ten and Jared and it raises his guard up even higher. Now I'm not going to say more because despite this being a holiday novella and Scott & Locey are always about the HEA, I don't want to spoil any of the journey the Madsen-Rowe household embarks on, just know that your heart will thank you for the experience. Seeing little, itty bitty Lottie walking and talking and being all kinds cute is plus.
How can I write a review for a Railers tale without mentioning one of the funniest scenes I've read in ANY story in a long time? Adler and Stan loudly discussing naughty Valentine gifts as Ten tries to shut them up as a reporter is only 10' away. How can that not leave you ROTFLYAO? Trust me, I'm glad I read this when I was at home and not in the waiting room at Mayo Clinic, they may just have had to call security because I would literally have been on the floor laughing hysterically. Thank you, ladies for including a convo that could only work with Adler and Stan.
The hockey universe consisting of Harrisburg, Owatonna, Arizona, & Boston Scott & Locey has created should be read in order, especially those involving Ten and Jared. Will you be lost if you read Perfect Gifts without having read any of the other universe? Probably not but there are other characters mentioned and seen who make a lasting impression if you know their individual stories as well. None of the stories will leave you sorry you picked them up. Just so much yumminess all over the place and I don't mean just the sexy times, but overall heartwarminess(yeah I know that's not a word but I think it sums it up pretty spot on).
“So, where do we think she got on the brother kick?” Jared asked as he stirred some of the honey that Adler’d brought us into his mug. Ad had taken up beekeeping. Why? Not a clue, but we all suspected that it was so he could brag about having a big stinger in the locker room. They’d found out Layton was allergic, so he watched the bees from a distance.
“Probably at the indoor playground over in Camp Hill earlier,” I said while dunking a Stella D’oro cookie into my tea. I’d have a few. Cookies were not recommended by the Railers nutritionist as healthy afternoon snacks. “She was playing with Michelle Khan.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs. Khan just had a baby,” Jared replied, then added one more dollop of honey to his mug. “A little boy.”
“Yep. She was cooing and cuddling the baby until we left. She even skipped the jungle gym and slide to tickle tiny Joey’s chin.”
Jared’s eyes flared. Lottie never passed the jungle gym and slide. Ever. I’d had to climb in a time or two to extract her when it was time to go. Jared—the old D-man that he was—was too burly to fit. The parents who had gotten to witness a hockey player trying to wedge his shoulders into a skinny tube with monkeys painted on the sides had found it pretty amusing. As had the local press the following day. Nothing says professionalism after just signing a new multi-million dollar contract like being photographed wriggling through the monkey tumble tube.
“That explains it,” he commented as he began thumbing languidly through his daily read of The Patriot News online. The man looked sexy AF in those reading glasses.
“Yeah, I guess.” I nibbled on my cookie, my phone showing a half-read article in The Athletic waiting for me to return to it. “You know we could consider it.” That brought his gaze up from the local news. He studied me over the top of his DILF glasses. “What? It’s not as if we haven’t discussed having another baby. It was kind of always our plan.”
“Well… yes, I know we’ve discussed it.” He removed his glasses, folded them, and laid them by the cookie box. He assessed me intently. “Do you think it’s something we should look at more closely?”
“Maybe?” I reached for another cookie, my sight darting from the cookie to Jared to the window where the glass was coated with a touch of frost around the edges. Fall was here, and it was glorious. We had pumpkins to carve, cider to drink, and Halloween costumes to decide on before the end of the month rolled around. “I mean she is here alone all the time.”
“She’s not alone. She has us, a nanny, and now, a dog.”
“Well yeah, I don’t mean like we Kevin McAllister her or anything, it’s just…” I plucked the cookie from its wrap, then dunked it quickly into my tea, hurrying to get the shortbread treat to my mouth. I chewed, then swallowed. Jared sat across from me waiting patiently for me to make my point. “Okay, so, and never tell them—especially Brady—but having siblings to grow up with was pretty nice. Most of the time.”
Saturday's Series Spotlight
RJ ScottWriting 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
Harrisburg Railers Series
Owatonna U Series
Arizona Raptors Series
Boston Rebels Series
Sparkle #1.5(LA Storm)
Railers Legacy Series
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