In the Penalty Box by Lynn Rush and Kelly Anne Blount, published by Entangled Publishing is a stand-alone, sports romance and I greatly enjoyed reading this beautiful story.
I gingerly started reading this book, because co-written stories sometimes don't do it for me. But I'm happy to say, these two authors did very well. Ther are no cracks et al in the storyline, everything fits in Willow and Brody's beautiful story.
A great read, 4,5 stars.

I really liked this book! It was the perfect sweet romance to curl up and read on a cold day. I have something of a history of reading YA hockey romances, so I was thrilled to find this one on NetGalley.
Willow Covington's dreams of becoming an Olympic figure skater are crushed when she injures her Achilles heel. When she blocks a wayward shot from Brodie "Wind" Windom that was about to go crashing into her best friend, Brodie's team invites her to be their hockey goalie, since their goalie was just injured in a pick-up game. Though she's apprehensive at first, Willow slowly rediscovers her passion for the game and, despite the strict no-fraternization rule on the team, grows closer to Brodie, who helps her train and get stronger. But when forced to choose between her lifelong dream and her newfound team, which side will Willow pick?
Just to be clear, this book was a two POV (which I love!) YA hockey romance. One of the things I really enjoyed about it was that it included the fallout of having a girl on a boys hockey team and one of the character arcs was having a teammate keep complaining about Willow's presence and slowly start to appreciate her, until he finally admits that their team is better because they have her. The book also dealt with a variety of themes, instead of focusing on just the romance aspect the way some YA romances do. While Willow's family is coming back together, Brodie's is falling apart, and he learns that he can lean on other people, including his best friend, instead of bottling up his feelings. There also weren't any cliches in this book. There was no signature mean girl, no vengeful ex, and certainly no snobby rich boys. Though some of the leading players of opposing teams are particularly nasty to Willow, for the most part, Willow's team gets revenge through success. Aside from the sexist opposing players, both of the main characters had a lot of self-respect (another feature I loved) and respect for other people and players, even if they were from other teams.
Overall, this was a really sweet book and I can't wait to see what the authors come out with next!

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled for sending me this arc! All opinions are my own.

I really enjoy YA romances, but this one just isn’t my favorite. While I enjoyed it at times, it was cute, there were a few major flaws for me. There seemed to be a good bit of internalized misogyny through the interactions between Willow and some of the guys on the hockey team in the beginning. While I understand in high school guys can be a bit harsh, this seemed to be a little more than that. It was a bit cringe worthy. It didn’t necessarily fully detract from the story, but it didn’t help it either.

While I liked the characters themselves (Willow and Brodie) they were pretty typical and cliche of the high school teens.

A lot was packed into this book and the flow was fine, but not the greatest. This isn’t a bad book, just not my favorite.

So, I usually love a good hockey romance. Add in figure skating and it’s a win win! However this fell a little flat for me. It wasn’t badly written, but it had a lot of things going on and some plot points that definitely made me shake my head. Overall it was just ok for me. Thank you to netgalley for the arc.

This book was definitely something I enjoyed, but didn't love. I tend to enjoy sports romances, so I liked that about this book, but I just never entirely connected to the characters. The hockey matches were very well written though, I felt like I was there with the characters.

In the Penalty Box is the story of Brodie and Willow, hockey players looking to win the state championships. Willow, a competitive figure skater had injured her Achilles, forcing her to go through grueling physical therapy. After playing goalie in a pick-up game, she find herself loving hockey, and joins the team. Brodie, determined to play hockey for Boston College, refuses to let himself be distracted by anyone, even Willow.

From both the cover and the blurb, this book was about as predictable as it could be. Not that that's a bad thing, it just means that the book just has to bring something else to the board. Sadly, this didn't. It was the usual contemporary romance, with the normal plotline.

I liked both Brodie and Willow, but I wasn't head over heels for either of them. Willow got way too good at hockey a bit too fast for me, but I did emphasize with her. As an athlete, I can't imagine what injuring yourself so badly could be like. I was really rooting for her to recover, but I wasn't too happy with where her story ended. I liked Brodie, but I wish he would've gotten a bit more character development. I loved his relationship with his little brother, so I wish we would've seen a bit more of them, but whatever.

The plotline about Brodie's dad felt a bit random, and didn't serve any purpose in the book. It wasn't explained as well as it could have been, so I'm not entirely sold on it. It was touching to see the friendship between Preach and Brodie though, so I can't complain too much.

As for the relationship that drove this book, it wasn't my favorite, but it was enjoyable. I did get a bit tired of reading about how attractive they were, it was mentioned almost constantly. I also was a bit thrown off by the insta-love, but I enjoyed the romance against my better judgement.

Despite this review being mostly complaints, I did enjoy this. It was stereotypical and predictable, but it held my attention. I got dragged into the book, and was really rooting for both Brodie and Willow. If you're a lover of romance and sports, you'd definitely enjoy this!

Thanks to Lynn Rush and Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to enjoy this one but it felt a little too forced. I couldn't get into the story line no matter how hard I tried. I think this might be a book I revisit and enjoy more if I am in a different mood when I read or maybe the weather changes?

In the Penalty Box is a contemporary sports romance focusing on Willow, a figure skater in rehab, and Brodie, a promising hockey player. It follows them navigating through senior year.


I won't get into the plot, because there really isn't much to tell. The story is character driven, and even the "big twist" at the beginning is something I predicted at 20%.

What I'd like to talk about more is the shallowness of the characters. See, human nature is complicated. I think we can all agree about that. People change and evolve and grow their whole lives and everybody is unique, but there is a certain average of maturity at 18 that neither Willow nor Brodie achieved despite not having perfect lives and dealing with a lot of hardships. They were literally kids. Kids, okay? It was so annoying.

Next up, we have the constant, endless talk about how sexy each of them were. In every single chapter, the word sexy was mentioned at least once, sometimes it was ten times. Again, annoying!

Same goes for the issue of blushing. Both of them were red in the face 75% of the time.

Also, the next time any of these authors decides to write a book from a male point of view, I'd recommend... trying harder, I guess. If you told me that Brodie was a girl, based on his thoughts and the writing style used I'd totally believe you.

The last criticism I have is that the whole hockey situation didn't seem realistic or believable. I'm in no way a hockey expert and I'd probably believe something that is total nonsense if it was sold the right way. This wasn't. And I'm not talking about the scenes where they were playing hockey itself, they were done very well in my opinion, I'm talking about the fact that a high school team from a nothing town could win a championship as big as was mentioned in the book and a good deal of other logistics. In spring, I read The Deal by Elle Kennedy, which is also a college sports romance, and I never once questioned the realness of it, the author simply seemed to know a lot (or enough) about how hockey works. I'm sure if Elle Kennedy did her research, Lynn and Kelly could have done theirs, too.

I'm really sad that I didn't love this book, because I was so excited to delve into it! My figure skating phase is at its peak these days and when I saw this book on NG, I didn't even look up other reviews or the authors' other books like I normally do - I clicked on "request" instantly. And my hysteria didn't pay up, unfortunately. Also, I feel like this has a lot of potential that was left to rot. What a pity :(

Anyways, I hope that this review helps you decide if In the Penalty Box is worth it. I'm not saying that it isn't - but let's be honest, there are books that are worth much more.