What started out as unexpectedly sad turned into a good book. It took a little while for the characters to develop but the plot was good and overall I enjoyed the story!

This was my first book by this author and definitely will not be my last! Give me a single dad book and I am sold. But give me a single dad, hockey romance and I am ALL about it.

I loved the way the author wrote Aurora and Mike's story. I felt like it flowed well and the characters connection stood out. Just a super cute read overall!

I can't wait to read more by Jenny Holiday in the future!

So good!! This was such a good comfort read. The characters were super relatable and very realistic! This books doesn’t shy away from the everyday things that people go through and I am here for it.

It is a super fun and quirky read that will have you kicking your feet and giggling !

This was JUST the book to pick me up and get me through a rough week!

I love Jenny Holiday - her holiday series was one of my FAVES. So it is no surprise that I squealed when I got an Advanced Copy of her latest, Canadian Boyfriend, and DEVOURED it in less than 24 hours.

Aurora Evans' life has been defined by being a ballerina. It was her childhood and adolescence - pushed incessantly by her mother. It meant she didn't have a normal youth, so when a cute Canadian Hockey player shows up at her coffee shop, she dreams of him being her boyfriend - and serving as her excuse to skip social functions. She writes letters to him, that she never sends, as a way to process the tough moments.

Fast forward several years and Aurora is back in Minnesota, her mother's dreams of her as a professional ballerina are no more. She is teaching tap at a local dance studio and is thrilled when one of her favorite students, Olivia returns after the tragic loss of her mother. But she is shocked to realize that Olivia's father is Mike, the fully grown hockey player she met and pretended was her boyfriend, And it only escalates when Aurora essentially becomes Olivia's nanny.

I fell for these characters hard and fast. The chemistry and connection between Aurora and Mike just jumped off the page. It felt both instant and had all the makings of a slow burn. This romance tackled a lot of tough issues - grief, eating disorders, panic attacks, and mental health. But it was done so well and in ways that felt natural and earned. The book didn't shy away from the hard shit, but instead embraced it as an important part of the characters' journey. The growth felt authentic and frankly was refreshing to hear characters talk about their therapy sessions, emotional intelligence and boundaries. We LOVE a mature relationship!!

Just a delightful book that I was sad to finish. Big Thanks to Forever and NetGalley for the Advanced Copy. The Canadian Boyfriend is out on Jan 30!!

Will post this review on goodreads, retail sites and my bookstagram @scottonreads

Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: ebook
Length: 384 pages

Thank you to Netgalley, Forever Grand Central Publishing and Jenny Holiday for an e-arc of this book. All thoughts/opinions are completely my own.

I really wanted to love this book but I could not get over the obsession that Rory had with Mike after meeting him **one time** as a teenager. It just felt way too weird to me that she spent so much time writing fake letters to a real life person pretending to be his girlfriend. I knew that the letters were going to come back to haunt her and it just made me so uncomfortable the whole time.

TLDR; Jenny Holiday is always a winner for me - i cannot get enough! I'm so glad that I got the chance to read it early and will definitely be recommending it to multiple people who enjoy these types of novels. I enjoyed the characters and especially enjoyed the writing by this author. I'm excited to see what the author comes out with next as I'll definitely be reading it! Thank you to the publisher for my early copy of this book!

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: 𝐉𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟑𝟎, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️💫 (4.5)

Thank you to my friends at Forever for providing me with a #gifted copy of Canadian Boyfriend!

Canadian Boyfriend was such a sweet sports romance and so heartwarming! I loved Aurora and Mike and felt like together they were just so perfect. This is not your typical romance, and there were some difficult topics woven into the storyline, but I loved how through it all, there was hope. I also enjoyed how both characters had their own imperfections but they worked so well together. There was so much character growth that I also really loved. Overall, I would highly recommend this one. I don’t read many sports romances, but this one was pure perfection!

🏒Hockey & Ballet
🩰Friends to Lovers
🏒Dual POV
🩰Slow Burn
🏒Single Dad
🩰Second Chance

Posted on Goodreads on January 23, 2024: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/144922955?ref=nav_profile_l
**Posted on Instagram - Full Review- on or around January 24, 2024: http://www.instagram.com/nobookmark_noproblem
**Posted on Amazon on January 30, 2024
**-will post on designated date

You ever see a stranger in public who you find so appealing, your brain conjures up a “what if” scenario? In Jenny Holiday’s latest, Canadian Boyfriend, that “what if” scenario becomes very real for former ballerina-in-training Rory.

When she was a teenager working at the mall’s chain coffee shop, Rory had a chance encounter with Mike, a Canadian hockey player in town for a junior league game, and who Rory develops an instant crush on. Though it doesn’t work out, she seizes the opportunity to cast him as her “Canadian boyfriend,” as a way to compensate for her lack of friends at school and in ballet training. Years later, she gets the shock of her life when her former one-sided pen pal Mike turns out to be a very real human being, and also the recently-widowed father of one of the girls Rory teaches at the local dance school.

The two of them strike up a friendship that eventually turns into Rory moving in with Mike and his daughter to help take care of her while Mike is away due to his NHL schedule. Of course, the close proximity means that their friendly feelings start to grow into something more, but also something that becomes tough to navigate with Mike’s grieving preteen in the house.

Both Mike and Rory have a LOT of damage that needs to be unpacked before they can even think of getting together, and it’s refreshing to see that the book actually gives them time to do that. It’s also refreshing to see that therapy as a means of healing from trauma isn’t depicted as a band-aid solution, or a one-time thing, but instead an ongoing process rife with setbacks. Their romance itself is very sweet, and very thoughtful, which is very typically Jenny Holiday, and something I love that we’re seeing more and more in romance! You don’t need to be emotionally immature in order to have conflict!

As a total aside: as a Canadian, I got a huge kick out of all the little “Canadianisms” sprinkled throughout the book, and if it weren’t for the fact that it was -15c outside while I was reading, I might have gone to Tim Hortons for my large coffee with 2 creams, purely because of the sheer number of times it’s name-dropped in the book.

Canadian Boyfriend hits shelves on January 30. Special thank you to Forever for the advance copy for review purposes.

<b>Lighthearted Warm and Emotional Romance</b>

“Canadian Boyfriend” is a somewhat lighthearted, warm and emotional romance that deals with some heavy topics but is never heavy handed. However, the third act break up is a little ridiculous and left me wishing the author had made different choices.

Rory meets Mike at the Mall of America when she’s 16 and he’s visiting from Canada for a hockey tournament. She immediately designates him as the real inspiration for her fake “Canadian Boyfriend”. A Canadian boyfriend is a fake boyfriend that she can use as an excuse for being solo or for not attending social events. Rory also begins keeping a diary and writing entries to “Mike” for the next three years.

“I started writing my Canadian Boyfriend when I was in high school. I sat in the cafeteria and wrote him letters, and in so doing, I felt less alone. He became a diary, half fiction. Half what was happening, half what I wished were happening.”

Cut to 13 years later and Rory is teaching ballet to young girls. The mother of one of the girls passed away several months prior. Rory learns that the father is a hockey player who is extremely good looking and is Canadian.

It turns out that the father of her student, Olivia, IS her Canadian boyfriend, Mike Martin, but Rory remains unsure for a while. (Throughout the book, in her POV chapters, Rory refers to Mike as “Mike Martin” - it’s a little weird)

Mike and Rory very slowly develop a friendship. He kind of hires her to help take care of Olivia as he has two years left on his NHL contract. In doing so he provides her with a sensible car, a place to stay and health insurance so she can go to therapy for her panic attacks and eating disorder. So they are living together and developing a friendship while he is grieving and she is learning to be more of her own person. I really enjoyed the way their friendship developed. It was very unrushed and natural.

At about the halfway mark of the book they share their first kiss. It was a fade-to-black kiss which I’ve never experienced previously and kind of had me wondering about the rest of the book. But the sex scenes in later chapters are not fade-to-black, they aren’t really explicit either. They are off and on with the physical relationship and it also occurs in a very unrushed and natural way. I was happy about that as it gave Mike time to grieve properly.

The third act break up was my main quibble with the book. I just didn’t understand Mike’s over the top reaction to what he believed was “lying” on the part of Rory. He himself lied to her in regards to the car and the health insurance he provided her. (He tells her almost immediately about the lies though)

I did enjoy this book and it has a lot to offer in terms of wisdom about grief, getting over emotional abuse and living up to your dreams for yourself.

When you first hear about this book, it sounds like a mishmash of tropes: he’s a recently widowed dad and hockey player (yes, from Canada), and she’s a former ballerina-turned-dance teacher who he asks to be the live-in nanny to his daughter, who adores her.

Oh yeah, and it turns out the hockey player (Mike) and ballerina (Aurora) met briefly when she was a teenager, and she turned him into her fictional “Canadian boyfriend” and wrote diary-style letters to him as an emotional outlet.

I suppose it can be easy to boil this story down to the forced proximity, age gap, slow burn of it all, but at its core, this is a warm, gentle story about two people who are looking to heal – him from losing his wife, and her from a toxic relationship with both her mother and ballet – and help each other do just that.

To me, the “Canadian boyfriend” set-up is actually a bit wobbly. Though there are cute things about it, it could have been cut entirely and the romance would still stand on its own merit. Though, I will admit that “Canadian boyfriend” is a pretty catchy title.

Overall, this is a sweet romance – but know that it is quieter and a bit more mature than the title and cover might lead you to expect.

3.75🌟
1.5🌶️

This book was sweet, emotional, and full of so much healing. I adored both the leads as individuals, but together, they truly sparkled ✨

This book has:
• A sports romance with a ballerina heroine and a hockey player hero 🏒
• The hero is a single dad, and the heroine is his daughter's dance coach
• Forced proximity 👩‍❤️‍👨
• Found family trope 💕 (and yes, there is a dog included)

There were a few things that I did not enjoy about this book, starting with the heroine referring to the hero with his full name. It was cute at the start until she continued to use it even after they started their relationship, which felt odd to me. Beyond that, the whole conflict surrounding the letters felt forced. I didn’t think the letter reveal was a big deal, so the third-act breakup was unnecessary for me.

Thank you to Forever Grand Central Publishing and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars

🍁 listen, y’all better get your torques and some timmies and get ready for this adorable and amazing romance read hitting shelves this month!

🍁Aurora Evans (Rory) is an ex-ballet dancer, currently teaching dance to a friend's student (but not ballet due to previous trauma with the genre that is further discussed in the book). When one of her favourite students comes back after losing her mother, the last person she expects to be her father is Mike Martin, the guy that she met in her teen years and pretended that he was her Canadian boyfriend (like, fully would write letters to and tell others about, but would also be a way to help her get through life).

🍁 While this book is definitely a bit more on the contemporary side of romance, it is still cute nonetheless. It delves into the difficult topics of grief, overcoming ones’ past, and learning to live. There are some difficult subjects, but I felt that they were handled wonderfully, which added to the characters and their lives. I also loved the litter daughter AND the dog (Earl 9).

🍁 Overall, I enjoyed this quick read, and you won’t need a reference guide to try and understand sports terms, but it may have you craving a regular double-double and some timbits😉

Teen ballerina Aurora invented a fictional Canadian boyfriend to cope socially. Years later she meets pro hockey player and single dad Mike, the real-life inspiration of her imaginary suitor. Both of them are battling demons when they form an unlikely friendship. Can Aurora find the courage to reveal her secret?

I loved this book! It’s a slow burn, funny and emotional with well-developed characters who stole my heart. Aurora and Mike have so much chemistry, I couldn’t help rooting for them to get together. They’re made for each other.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review:

TW: eating disorder, grief, toxic parent (not the main characters)

A beautiful story of healing for both the MMC and the FMC. Aurora (Rory) Evans is the dance teacher for a recently widowed NHL player’s daughter. Rory is an ex ballerina trying to figure out life. Mike Martin is trying to raise his daughter after tragically losing his wife. Overall, I enjoyed this story, but it is a heavier read. So keep that in mind if you pick up this book.

Tropes:
❤️‍🔥Slow burn
🖤forced proximity
🖤nanny but not (ifykyk)
🖤hockey player

Overall rating: 4 ⭐️

I zoomed through this book. It wasn’t as light-hearted a read as I was expecting, with some heavy topics being discussed throughout, but I think they were handled really well and balanced out with some of the lighter moments.

This was a very slow burn that gave Mike and Aurora some time to heal and grow before they got into a serious relationship. I loved the bond that they developed and how that grew over time felt very organic. I also loved the relationship Mike had with his daughter, Olivia, as well as the one Aurora was building with her.

That being said, I didn’t love the ending. I felt like Mike really overreacted and then they made up so close to the end of the book that you don’t really get to see them together as a couple outside of the epilogue.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As sports romances are becoming more popular, we all want to read them more. Canadian Boyfriend perfectly checks all the boxes of a cute hockey romance.

There are some heavy topics discussed in this bailarina/ hockey player romance. Enjoyed the slow pace as it allowed the characters to process and get together.

As a Canadian girly, who loves sports romance books, you just know I was excited to read this! I loved all the Canadian references in this!

I really enjoyed this book! It was funny, playful, and unexpectedly deep.

The characters were complex and interesting. It’s about a single dad hockey player (Mike) and a fun dance instructor (Aurora/Rory) that’s teaching his daughter, Olivia. You can’t help but fall in love with these three!

There are some deep and introspective moments that are relatable. There is lots of character development and growth from Aurora, Mike, and Olivia throughout the book. The characters go through lots of trauma and the author does a great job exploring and highlighting how important that aspect of the story is and how it shapes the characters, as well as showing the impact and difference therapy sessions make.

There’s only two things that I found were a bit weird in the story, which is that the timing of the conflict is a bit odd but it ended up working really well, and that the fmc, Aurora, always called the mmc by his first and last name throughout the whole book. It isn’t a huge deal because it could just be one of her quirky characteristics and I didn’t even notice until I was over half way through the book!

I loved the relationship dynamic that the fmc, Aurora has with Olivia. It was cute to read! And the relationship between Aurora and Mike was well written. I loved the cute little moments that are shared between them.

Overall, this was a great read! The sports aspect didn’t take away the element of romance or character development and vice versa! I really love the cover too😍

‼️Trigger Warnings‼️:
-panic attacks, grief, eating disorders, toxic parent, emotional abuse.

Tropes:
🏒 dual pov
🩰 sports romance
🏒 forced proximity
🩰 single dad
🏒 slow burn
🩰 friends to lovers
🏒 second chance

Rory finds herself in a predicament when she meets Mike at the dance studio. Why? She met him years ago when she worked in the mall and made him into her fake Canadian boyfriend. He was the perfect excuse to miss out on things at school, things she was already missing. She forgot about him until she found herself face-to-face with Mike Martin, the hockey player all the moms in the studio are fawning over.

The book touches on topics not found in most romance novels, such as grief, mourning a lost childhood, an unhealthy relationship with food, and mental health. These topics are handled well. Nothing is pushed on the reader; it’s just what the characters are dealing with while also dealing with their developing relationship.

Told in a dual POV, Canadian Boyfriend is a quick and easy romantic read. The first three-quarters of the book is fade to black. The events that happen in the last quarter, while not fade to black, aren’t excessively detailed either.

If you enjoy reading slow-burn romance books that take time to develop, you should read Canadian Boyfriend. While this is my first Jenny Holiday novel, I don’t think it will be my last!

This is the perfect read for all the BookTok girls who, like myself, have been enjoying the hockey romance book trend! "Canadian Boyfriend" has all the fun, silly, and escapism aspects of a classic romcom story. Aurora and Mike's story is cute and a true break from the complicated real world outside of this book. The flirting and the history between them (almost reads like a second chance romance) make the romance all the more stunning.

I really enjoyed this one. Some parts felt a little long to me. And the inner dialogue in the beginning kind of threw me for a loop because it felt like there were just so. Many. Words. But overall, I adored this one. Mike Martin was a dream and I admire the heck out of Aurora Lake.

I admire the way in which the author handled tough and sensitive subjects. It was a delight seeing Aurora come into her own and how therapy was helping her recover from an ED and an abusive mother. I also enjoyed the way the author wrote about grief and how different people deal with emotions and grief differently.. this book will be one that stays with me for a long time. *sigh*