Delayed Penalty by Sophia Henry Series: Pilots Hockey, #1
Published by Flirt Publication Date: September 1st 2015
Pages: 266
Also in this series: Power Play, Unsportsmanlike Conduct
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She closed her heart long ago. He just wants to open her mind. For fans of Toni Aleo and Sawyer Bennett, the debut of Sophia Henry’s red-hot Detroit Pilots series introduces a hockey team full of complicated men who fight for love.Auden Berezin is used to losing people: her father, her mother, her first love. Now, just when she believes those childhood wounds are finally healing, she loses something else: the soccer scholarship that was her ticket to college. Scrambling to earn tuition money, she’s relieved to find a gig translating for a Russian minor-league hockey player—until she realizes that he’s the same dangerously sexy jerk who propositioned her at the bar the night before.Equal parts muscle and scar tissue, Aleksandr Varenkov knows about trauma. Maybe that’s what draws him to Auden. He also lost his family too young, and he channeled the pain into his passions: first hockey, then vodka and women. But all that seems to just melt away the instant he kisses Auden and feels a jolt of desire as sudden and surprising as a hard check on the ice.After everything she’s been through, Auden can’t bring herself to trust any man, let alone a hot-headed puck jockey with a bad reputation. Aleksandr just hopes she’ll give him a chance—long enough to prove he’s finally met the one who makes him want to change.
If you like Toni Aleo’s Assassin series or Sawyer Bennet’s Off series, then you will enjoy Delayed Penalty too. Ms. Henry has her own unique voice and writing style, so her debut work won’t be confused for anyone else’s, but she definitely fits in with the hot hockey players!
The focus of Delayed Penalty is Auden, a college junior, and Aleksandr, a minor league hockey player from Russia. Even though Aleksandr is a main character in the book, we see the story from Auden’s point of view and this is really her story.
Both characters are right around 20 when they meet, so this falls firmly into the young adult category, but there are times when both Auden and Aleksandr, especially Aleksandr, come across as older. I don’t know if it relates to some of the struggles that they have both lived through, but there are times when their behaviors don’t always fit their ages.
One of the things I enjoyed about this book is that Auden is unique from a lot of female main characters. She’s athletic, but not a stand out. She’s smart, she gives back to the community, and she easily stands toe to toe with a difficult man. She’s also beautiful and doesn’t have a clue. The way she and Aleksandr meet is also fun; she is hired to be his translator while she is home for the Christmas break.
The romance part of the relationship between these two is sweet and has the expected ups and downs. Aleksandr is a truly good guy and even when he’s being a jerk, you root for him to figure it out.
Overall, this is a great debut work and I look forward to seeing what is in store in future installments of the series.
Elizabeth
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