Icebreaker is definitely a book that will succeed with all kinds of audiences, I just don’t really happen to be one of them. This romance between and ice skater and hockey player is fun and steamy, but I found a lot of the writing to be overly clunky and confusing. Regardless, I think I know plenty of people who will be fans.

This one isn’t for me. Reads a little too much like YA. Characters are a little too saccharine/cheesy.

"Looking at her makes me want to be the funniest guy in the room, so I can be the one to make her laugh.”

Synopsis: Anastasia Allen has been working her whole life for a chance to be on Team USA. She has been a competitive figure skater since she was only five years old, on a college scholarship for skating at Maple Hills, and a schedule that would be tough for most driven people, Stassie comes to win.
Nathan Hawkins has never had a problem he couldn’t find a way to solve. Being captain of the Maple Hills Titans, he carries the responsibility of keeping the hockey team on the ice.
When an incident results in the two teams sharing a rink, and Stassie’s partner gets hurt because of it, Nate swaps his stick for tights, and one scary coach for one even carrier.
Stassie and Nate are stuck together in more ways than one, but that’s okay, because Stassie doesn’t like hockey players…

Thoughts: I want Nathan Hawkins to be my boyfriend. He is my new favorite sports romance book boyfriend! He is so thoughtful, caring, loving, and a little reckless. But I loved everything about him! I really enjoyed reading his point of view and all his thoughts. Now I found Anastasia Allen super relatable! I felt for her with all the things she struggled with and liked watching her grow into a healthy person secure in herself. She stood up for herself and didn’t give up, and I love to see FMC like her! I fell in love with both Nate and Stassie, their chemistry, and banter *chefs kiss*. This was a top tier romance and had top tier smut! The cover may have you fooled, but it's full of yummy smut! Gosh the smut had me fanning myself. It was so hot and I did not expect it to be that hot and I am so glad it was!

This book includes:
Reverse Grumpy x Sunshine
frenemies to lovers
Guy falls first
steamy smut
College romance
Sports romance
Dual Pov

5/5 stars
3.8/5 spice

Thank you Hannah Grace, Atria Books, and NetGalley for providing an arc for
an honest review.

Absolutely needs an editor before trad publishing - flat characters, tenuous conflict, and unrealistic dialogue. A disappointment.

Having read the book in one day, I can see how there are so many mixed reviews.

The main character Anastasia, who is a D1 Partner Figure Skater definitely has a lot of issues that we see right away. She needs to be in control of every aspect of her life and when something doesn't go how she had it planned her day goes into a tailspin. She has a very poor relationship with food to one to her skating and mainly due to her skating partner. But it's all good, she's been in therapy for years 🙄. So much of the story is her "perfectly" explaining everyone's issues away because she's been in therapy, so she gets it, or using whatever regurgitated lines therapists in tv shows use to justify something. But just because someone needs therapy doesn't mean we have to allow all their bad behavior.

The other main character is Nate who is written as almost perfect, he has daddy issues, that's his main flaw. At one point in the story someone talks about how he was clearly written by a woman, and he that felt out of place. All of the characters are of course over 6 feet and jacked. This is one of the issues with the book, almost every single character is textbook perfect. No red flags, other than Aaron the skating partner, who we're all supposed to hate. It read like someone trying to make sure there weren't any issues anyone could have with the nonproblematic charters.

I know others have said it, but there are so many unnecessary facts and extra information about side characters that don't add any value to this story. It seems like the author is setting it up for all the future spinoffs. All of it added up to making it a slower and more confusing read, because you get this information that ends up being useless.

Not much actually happen, and for a story with hockey and skating there is no information about any games or competitions other than if they won or lost.

Thanks to NetGally for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

nathan 🫶🫶

^previous review as I read the KU version

I really enjoyed Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, it was entertaining and sweet! I felt that the main character was a bit annoying so I found it a little hard to continue reading at some points. Would recommend if you enjoy sports romances!!

I have only ever read one hockey romance book, and I can say without a doubt that I am now onboard with this trope!! Hannah Grace has such an easy flowing writing style that allows you to follow along with the story while growing attached to the characters. I found myself laughing and swooning a lot throughout the book. Also learning a lot about hockey! If this piques your interest, I recommend picking up this book!

The audiobook released in November and the hard copy releases next month, but I was starting to see a lot of bookstagrams talking about this book.

It is told in 2 POVs: Anastasia, a figure
skater who doesn’t like commitment and working toward the Olympics and Nathan, the senior captain of his hockey team. The book started off really good. I liked the characters development (both major and minor), but the book was just too long. Too many plot twists and situations being added. Plus the closer it was to the end, the less the details made sense and became unrealistic. This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had a difficult time connecting to this book and even wanting to finish it. It felt extremely drawn out and the pacing was off. There were some laugh out loud moments that kept me reading, but overall, the story was disconnected.

I have always said hockey romances hit different. I have yet to be disappointed (although I'm incredibly picky about which ones I do read so maybe my discretion has let to biased results lol).

Stassie was an incredible lead to follow. Her backstory is set up so that it felt like I was still getting to know her at 80% of the book because of the layers that made her who she was. It felt like a friendship between me as the reader and Stassie. That really tied me in to the story the entire way through. Same goes for Nate. The slow reveal of both of their histories, childhoods, fears, traumas, and so on was done exquisitely. I was invested in the two of them the entire way through. In fact, I could say that the same goes for all the secondary characters because I want a book for every single one of these dweeby hockey players. I love them all.

The smut in this book is GOD TIER. It's almost one every 10% of the book unless there was an emotional high point to take up space. It was just CHEFS KISS. Horny in the best way, brat x pleasure dom, tender yet rough, and just fun to read.

I loved the way Stassie's eating disorder, toxic friendship with Aaron, and her adoption trauma were addressed throughout the book. It felt respectful, gentle, and authentic to the character. There was no trauma porn with intention to evoke tears. It felt like raw and realistic representation and I loved how well it was done.

The most stunning part is that this is a DEBUT so I have the highest hopes that the books are just going to get unbelievably better from here. Loved it!!

I picked this book up on the recommendation of a couple of “BookTubers.” I love hockey, so thought a romance involving a hockey player might be interesting. I guess I’m not as well-read in contemporary romance, so I did find some of the characterizations a bit grating. I also found it odd how little we spent on the ice when the plot summary focused so heavily on the main characters having to work together. I also found the writing to lack luster and the first-person perspective to be a bit off-putting. While I eventually got to a point where I cared about our huge cast of characters, the HEA ending felt forced to me. (I was mad at the two years later because of conversations earlier in the book, as well as generally Stasie having to legiti give up her career aspirations and for what???) I'm hesitant and a bit curious for a JJ book, (and it didn't go unnoticed that there's one paragraph early in the book talking about his pan identity that uses they/them pronouns, but the author uses he/him pronouns for the rest of the book.) At the end of the day, it was some fun and ridiculous romance, which I guess gets the job done. Even if I'm personally tired of the "he's so big and huge and she's so teeny tiny trope"

Anastasia and Nathan are the grumpy/sunshine romance we all need. Included are a healthy dose of spice, sassy banter and a lovable cast of supporting characters. I found some of the dialogue to be immature and far fetched for college-aged students. It would have also benefitted from more research about figure skating.

Icebreaker was incredible! This book definitely lived up to all the hype, and was absolutely amazing. I was immediately hooked, and never wanted it to end! This book and author both quickly became all time favorites of mine. I loved all of the characters and the storyline, and I can't wait for the next one in this series. Hannah Grace, your writing is wonderful! 100/10!

This is a really cute romance! I loved learning about hockey and ice skating through Stassie and Nathan’s experiences. It was really interesting to see a story about two athletes trying to help each other achieve their dreams.
The best part of this book was their chemistry and their relationship. Nathan and Stassie actually communicated when they had issues, which I really appreciated!
Nathan Hawkins is also just perfect, so that’s a plus for this book.
The only issue I had with this book was a little weirdness with pacing, but other than that, I really liked this book!

Despite seeing mixed reviews for this one I really, really enjoyed it! Perhaps the fact that The cutting edge is one of my favorite movies had something to do with it but either way I couldn't get enough of this figure skater/hockey player college romance! Perfect for fans of Elle Kennedy, this book had a lot of heart and I thought dealt with some heavy and important topics like body image issues and the pressures to be thin in competitive figure skating. Not to mention a toxic partnership, gaslighting and slut shaming. Great on audio and definitely one of my favorite sport romances to date! Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

This was very cute! I feel like there were some weak points in the writing but it was loads of fun and I think people will enjoy this when it comes out!

Granted… the sports romance thing where they both are highly successful in their careers or projected to be is still hard for me to suspend my disbelief on. I didn’t go to a school with D1 sports so it’s possible that’s what it’s like? It seemed like this added a level of matureness to characters that I’m not sure was realistic either. Like obviously not from the antagonist but a lot of the other characters seemed like they were clearly written by someone older. I don’t know!

This warms the cold depths of my single digit weather frozen heart. It's the bounciness of a Tessa Bailey book with the contrived issues of an Elle Kennedy and an absolutely delightful read

Whew the steam in this one!
I loved he anxiety representation and the alpha males being cinnamon rolls. Great enemies to lovers.
TW for sexual assault, emotional abuse, and gaslighting

I cannot wait to see this book as a major motion picture.
I loved it.
The characters were well rounded and I loved all the sizzle between the ice skaters and hockey players.
THANK YOU

If you are a fan of Elle Kennedy and sports romances, this book is for you! However, I think now that I've read other hockey and figure skating romances, the subgenre is just not for me. While this book expanded on the representation needed in romance (pansexual and disabled side characters, just to name a few), I'm not sure if it provided anything new to the subgenre. There was no plot to be found, the villain was pure evil (which makes him a bad villain, in my opinion), and the book was about 100 pages too long. Nate grated on my nerves by the end of the book, and I was never a big fan of Anastasia. Some of the lines were cringey, like Anastasia's inner monologue saying that Nate is "a man written by a woman" at one point.

*SPOILERS*

However, I think what brought this down from a 3.5-4 star read to a 3 star (almost 2.5, in all honesty), was the epilogue. Anastasia is adopted in the book, and she tells Nate that she also wants to adopt. However, in the epilogue, Anastasia is pregnant a year and half out from graduating college, if my calculations are correct. Nate made multiple comments about their babies in the last 25% of the book, and I just felt like he pushed what he wanted on Anastasia, not to mention bending to the stereotype and ideal that the only way a woman can be happy is if she is a mother.

All that being said, if you enjoy new adult & sports romance with lots of spice, I think you'll enjoy this book. It just wasn't for me! Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and Hannah Grace for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.