Shut Out (Bayard Hockey #1) by Kelly Jamieson – eARC Review

Publication Date:

June 7th, 2016

Publisher:

Loveswept

From the bestselling author of the Heller Brothers Hockey series comes the first novel of a new hockey romance series featuring a college team whose players are heating things up both on and off the ice.

The Bayard College hockey team isn’t where Jacob Flass thought he’d be a season ago. He was a rising star in the Canadian major junior league, cruising toward a spot on an NHL roster—until a single disastrous night on the town brought it all crashing down. Now he’s out of options, except for playing well, studying hard, and staying away from girls. He’s not supposed to be flirting with the hottest, sweetest chick he’s ever met. But how could he possibly stay away?

Skylar Lynwood knows that Jacob is out of her league. She’s just trying to go with the flow, which isn’t easy when six feet and four inches of total hockey hunkiness is making a play for her one moment, then giving her the cold shoulder the next. Skylar’s head tells her that this rugged athlete isn’t worth her time, but her body says something altogether different. Risking her heart for Jacob may be the craziest thing she’s ever done . . . but she won’t let him shut her out.

Review:

*I was provided a copy by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Once again this was a buddy read with Cristina @ My Tiny Obsessions so go to her blog in the next couple of days to read her thoughts about this book :).

This was my second hockey romance in the month of May and if it wasn’t for the book I read in between both of them I would have read them in a row which would be pretty funny since I don’t read that many hockey romances. As much as I loved both books this one was quite different from the one I read before but both were different in good kind of ways.

I really liked the characters in this book. I loved Jacob. He was a great character and he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Yes he made some mistakes punished for that (and even more things that he didn’t do) and he did learn with his mistakes. Also, he was pretty cool and he really liked Skylar (even if he does something a little bit stupid by the end). I also really liked Skylar. She went through something really difficult but as difficult as it was she used that to find out what she really loves to do and I loved that what happened to her didn’t define her life. These two had an amazing chemistry and I loved them together. It’s really funny when they started a fake relationship that for me it wasn’t fake at all. Seriously, that relationship was only fake in their heads (mostly in Skylar’s). But I really liked their relationship. I also really liked Jacob’s roommates/teammates/friends, especially Buck. I loved Buck and I want the next book to be about him and Ella (even if I didn’t like Ella that much in this book).

This book deals with a sensitive subject and it’s something that might not be easy to read to some people but I loved how it was integrated in the story and how important it was. I think it was well incorporated and it was something that affected both Jacob and Skylar and I really liked the way it was included in the story.

Another thing I really liked was the writing style. I think the writing flew pretty easily and I loved that it had dual POV but we could still differentiate Jacob and Skylar’s voices. It was a really enjoyable book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the story and I loved how the main plot was also used to educate people about things they might have doubts about. This book made me want to keep reading this series and also Kelly Jamieson’s other books. If you like NA hockey romances what are you waiting to read this one?