Summary:
Boston Rebels #3
A second chance at love is all Kyle wants for Christmas, but a dark menace from his past wants him dead, and love is second to staying alive.
Kyle Lourenco has carved out a comfortable life and career for himself in Boston. With the holidays quickly approaching, he’s heading home for the first time in several years. Home to his loving parents and the small Canadian town where he was raised. And home to Christian, his best friend and the first man to steal his heart.
Just as a winter storm begins to blow in, it forces Kyle off the road only miles from home and a dark and sinister force from his past creeps ever closer. His only hope is getting to Christian’s cabin before the evil that has haunted him for years finally catches up to him.
Best friends since they were three, Christian Gauthier grew up next door to Kyle, in a remote mountain town with one stoplight and a forty-mile round trip to the nearest school. When Kyle left town for a shot at a professional hockey career, he took Christian’s heart with him. Even though he knew Kyle was always destined for bigger things, it hadn’t stopped Christian from falling for him as soon as he knew what love was.
With Christmas coming soon and a major snowstorm heading their way, Christian shuts the doors to the family store and heads to his cabin, where he will be on standby as an official volunteer for Search and Rescue. He has never regretted staying in Eagle Ridge, but a near miss on a simple rescue leads him to reevaluate everything, and when Kyle ends up at his door, he knows that guarding his heart might not be the best solution after all.
Original December 2021 Book of the Month Review:
What can I say about Snowed? Hmmm? . . . Going home is always a treat at the holidays(even if the character is uncertain of their return). Second chance at past love can definitely bring about equal moments of new and nostalgia. Forced proximity is always a possibility here in the north, after all Mother Nature is a fickle . . . well let's just say she's fickle who has no sense of the clock or one's schedule. Throw all these factors together and you have yourself a powerfully emotional journey of discovery with just the right balance of mystery to make Snowed not your typical holiday fare and yet somehow it is typical in the sense of what makes a holiday story "holiday": HEART. Trust me there is plenty of heart in Scott & Locey's latest addition to their hockey universe.
Now, if I was to break it down a bit, well you know I won't do too much of that as this is a spoiler-free zone but I will give a little insight. Kyle is coming home after being injured on the ice but he isn't too sure how welcomed he will be especially by his ex, Christian. Christian stayed when Kyle left to pursue his hockey career and now that fate has left them stranded at Christian's cabin will they be able to talk and discover what has been missing from each of their lives in their years apart? You know you'll have to read Snowed for yourself to find that answer .
I hinted at mystery earlier and yes there is something that doesn't quite add up about Kyle's "mental blocks" for the lack of a better term here and they can definitely tug at your heartstrings and want to wrap Kyle up in Mama Bear Hugs till everything is all better but sometimes we have to experience the pain to find and appreciate the joy, fictional characters are no different. Okay, perhaps they tend to have more than their fair share of pain but in my experience that actually helps me work through things in my own life, course it also at times makes me want to whack them upside the head with a cast iron skillet.
Back to the mystery element, I love how it's believable, it's not forced to fit the characters or the setting, it's not thrown in to give Kyle and Christian an extra level of drama. It may not happen every day but it is believable, hurts one's heart but still very possible.
There may not be much hockey in this entry to the authors' hockey universe but it does make for a perfect beginning, it hooks you and pulls you in. And where this story goes is what truly makes the whole book a delightful gem. Can't wait to see where Scott & Locey go next.
RATING:
It took me a few moments to clear my head and make an assessment. Other than my shoulder, I was okay. Sore and trembling but safe. Thank God for seatbelts. If I’d not been strapped in, I would have been flying through the windshield and kissing a tree. That thought made me queasy. I tried the windshield wipers. They made one pass then died. It was just enough to see that the front of the Explorer was bent around a fat fir tree.
“Great,” I moaned, easing my right hand down to free myself from the seatbelt. Powder from the airbags filled the interior, making me cough and sputter. The headlights were still on. Which was good. Sitting here in the woods alone in the dark made me edgy. The unseen could be lurking in the forest, silent, like the wolves that prowled the muskeg, forests, and tundra of Manitoba. There was plenty around home that could kill you that didn’t dwell in your nightmares. “Fucking great.” I checked my phone for service even though I knew there wouldn’t be this far from Eagle Ridge during a blizzard. “Fuck,” I snarled, which ignited a new pain in my neck. Super, so I now had whiplash as well as a re-fucked shoulder. “Asshole moose.”
I knew the area well. I had to get somewhere warm and call for a tow truck. There was little to be done for my shoulder. That would have to wait until I could get to Churchill where they had a pretty decent health center. It would set me back a few weeks. I gave it another ten minutes then my headlights began to dim. A deep, unsettling unease crept into my chest. Without the lights on the dash or the headlights, the darkness would descend.
Grabbing my Rebels duffel, my childhood stick, and the bag of presents for my parents, I took the keys from the ignition and exited the car. Snow whipped around me, tiny bits of ice mixing in with the flakes to scour any exposed skin. Thankfully, I had worn my thickest winter coat. The son of Miriam Enook Lourenco knew enough to dress in layers. Shame he didn’t know enough to not run off the damn road. Fear spurred me on. The wind was brutally cold. The outside temperature, according to the dash of Rocky’s totaled SUV, had read zero degrees Fahrenheit, which was normal for this time of year. I took a few steps, my hood cinched around my head, and turned on the flashlight that was in the car, to give me about a foot of light before the snow cut the beam into nothingness. I swallowed. It was fine. I knew where I was. Christian had a cabin just a mile or so down Egret Lane. Head down, I pushed into the storm, the snow already to my knees.
Once I got into the woods, the wind did ease a bit, but not enough. Something cracked behind me. I spun around with a gasp, heart pounding in my breast, and waved the light back and forth.
“Who is it?” I shouted, but the gale force winds carried my words away. I stood there, locked in fear, snow battering my face like a sandblaster, squinting to see into the maelstrom.
Just a tree. It was just a tree breaking and falling. Nothing to worry about. It’s not the unseen. Just keep walking. You know this road. Round the bend. Up the knoll. The old Adjuk place. Mom told you all about it. Dad helped Christian put on a new roof when he bought it. You’re safe, just keep walking.
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.
Snowed
Harrisburg Railers Series
Owatonna U Series
Arizona Raptors Series
Boston Rebels Series
Sparkle #1.5(LA Storm)
Railers Legacy Series
