Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a review.

Nick and Alyssa are such interesting characters. I was excited to get to know them, and to see them grow past the incredible circumstances of their lives as they meet, work together, become friends, and eventually fall in love. Nick is one big ball of trauma. He doesn't feel like he deserved to survive an awful plane crash, and Alyssa can't ever do enough for her boss. Seeing them interact with each other and grow was so exciting, and I don't know why but I'm here for the hockey boys. I want all their books ASAP.

I love Nick and his teammates/friends. I thought the conflict, plots and setting for this book was engaging and fun, and I'm looking forward to more stories about these hockey boys.

Nick Sorensen had once been one of the fastest men in hockey—until the devastating plane crash that took the lives of his best friends, leaving him the only survivor. Now he’s physically ready to get back on the ice, but his coach is concerned Nick isn’t doing as well, mentally, as he says he is. Case in point: Nick’s apartment is completely empty, apart from a single chair and a mattress on the floor.
To prove he’s fine, really, Nick hires Alyssa Compton, an up-and-coming interior designer, to decorate his space. Alyssa’s thrilled at the chance to prove herself to her demanding boss—with job security at last, maybe she can finally put down roots and create a home for herself too. But Nick turns out to be infuriatingly stubborn and impossible to work with, and just when Alyssa decides to throw in the towel on the whole thing, Nick shows up for her in a way she never could have expected.
The icy path ahead of these two lost souls may be slippery and cracking, but when it comes to love, sometimes all you need is someone on your team.

I am 100% in my hockey romance era and was very excited to pick this one up. The premise was really intriguing and I enjoyed that there a solid foundation of mental health awareness and grief tied into a story with romance and banter. I liked the main characters and felt for them, but I had a hard time with some of the miscommunication between the two during parts of the story.

Nick and Alyssa.

Tropes:
•Hockey Romance
•Forced Proximity
•Life After Tragedy

This story tugged on my heart from the beginning. I didn’t love this constant miscommunications in the last 25% although it was a refreshing take on a hockey romance especially with the elements of the tragedy.

Thank you, netgalley, for the free ebook.
4.5 stars...
Nick loses his best friends in a plane crash that he is the sole survivor. He struggles to get back on the ice and move past this tragedy, moving to a new team and town, but will his guilt keep him from true love?

In this book we follow Nick and Alyssa in their way of healing. Nick is a famous NHL hockey player in a new team after an airplane crash where his 5 friends and team mated died, including his best friend who shared a flat with him.
One day when meeting with his new team mates, he meets Alyssa, an interior designer, and they both feel atraction.
His coach makes Nick contact Alyssa to try to decorate his new apartment.
Will they help each other to move forward together?

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the copy of this book to read and review.

Hearts on Thin Ice really has a great premise in terms of Nick’s history of life trauma, and Alyssa’s own personal history as well. It offered an opportunity to showcase a couple being professionally successful as individuals and forging positive relationships despite their experiences.

Unfortunately for me, there was a huge gap between what this book could be and what it ended up being. What I read was a book that was a little all over the place, with two individually bland characters, who had very little spark to them as a couple. The intimate scenes lacked connection and didn’t convince me at all as to the depth of this couple’s affection or a relationship that would have any longevity.

The best character was Alyssa’s brother as he had some depth of character. And despite this being a sports romance there was very little of the said sport …(hockey) apart from the team mates if Nick’s who were mentioned who also supposedly played hockey. This aspect was really underdone yet we got a bucketload of decorating …… weird.

(Aside … I couldn’t otherwise deal with Alyssa naming her vagina. She wasn’t a funny person and it just seemed juvenile to me).

This was unfortunately a big miss for me.

Received an ARC through Netgalley. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Alcove for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

Read this book if you like:
-Grumpy/sunshine
-Hockey Romance
- Dual POV

I have to start off by saying I love the cover! It's what drew me to request the book. It's so cute. Because of this, I had very high expectations and excitement for this book, and I LOVED the first few chapters. The heavy grief and sadness brought tears to my eyes and made my heart break for Nick. Then, I started struggling to get into the plot itself. My only complaint is that it feels a little wordy. Other than that, this book is amazing, and I really enjoyed the characters' connection to each other.

Hearts on Thin Ice is an ice hockey romance that follows Nick, a pro ice hockey player who is just getting back onto the ice after being involved in a tragic plane crash that killed everyone on board (including many of his teammates) and Alyssa, an interior decorator who has dreams of opening up her own business.

I give this book 3.5/5 stars rounded up to 4 stars. I love angsty romance books and with the book’s premise I thought I’d love this one too, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. While there were some emotional elements to the book, for me a lot of these elements lacked depth and I expected more of a nuanced exploration of the themes of the book, particularly considering how traumatic the plane crash was for Nick.

I didn’t really buy the romance between Nick and Alyssa to the extent that I believed they were in love. It seemed like they liked each other (and that they enjoyed having sex with each other), but it also seemed like the relationship was still too early and too superficial to be love. There were constant misunderstandings between the characters throughout the entire book and neither of them really put in enough effort to try and understand where the other was coming from.

I also very much disliked that Alyssa referred to her own vagina as ‘Rip Van Winkle’ constantly throughout the book…it made the steamier scenes pretty cringe to read at points.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this book overall; it was a fun, relatively quick read that mostly kept me entertained until the end, but it also didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

I’d recommend this book for anyone that wants to read a sports romance that’s light on the sports, a book that deals with trauma but not in-depth and a light romance that has some cute moments in it.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ugh, I love hockey romances like seriously I eat them up. This was advertised as a hockey romance, and hockey is sort of mentioned, but this is not a hockey romance🤦🏼‍♀️ I feel like the cover is so misleading because not only do that never happen (Alyssa never goes to a game or anything like that) honestly basically zero scenes even take place at a hockey arena. Nick, the MMC, is a NHL hockey player and his teammates are also featured in the book and that is the extent the the "hockiness".

But aside from that, I just couldn't get with this book. The plot definitely has potential but the execution just wasn't there. Nick and Alyssa's relationship was barely anything and definitely was a low point in this book. Every time they would almost make a break through and actually talk about something emotional or "real" so to speak, boom it turns into a sex scene. Additionally I just didn't like Nick that much. I swear every other chapter his personality changed from happy golden retriever to emotionally stunted wall. I actually didn't mind Alyssa for the most part, but overall just boring and the execution for the plot just wasn't there.

This was a cute story. I’m not sure I’d consider it a sports story since that was more just a background plot. There’s lots of healing and trauma presented for both the fmc and mmc. The fmc is very relatable which I love in a story. Overall I liked it.

I had to sit with my thoughts after I finished this one. It's a good book but I'm not sure it was what I expected. Nick has a tragic back story with surviving his team's accident. He has to deal with a lot of trauma and grief. Alyssa adds to the story in her own way.
I went into this expecting a hit and heavy hockey romance, I didn't get that. What I got was a person dealing with pain and overcoming it. It was actually a good read.
Thank you Katie Kennedy and NetGalley for letting me read this book.

What to say... Well first I need to say that I am in a huge reading slump, maybe because this slump I did not really enjoyed this book. I am a huge fan of a sports romance. And the first few pages made me cry, but that is all.
Maybe because of the reading slump, maybe because this book was written in 3rd person ( I am not a fan), maybe because I just couldn't feel the connection with the characters... this was just okay for me...

Ce livre sort le 8 juin prochain mais j’ai eu l’opportunité de le lire avant sa sortie!

Nous allons suivre Nick, un joueur de hockey qui est le seul survivant d’un terrible accident d’avion, qui tente tant bien que mal de reprendre sa place dans sa vie. Un jour, ses coéquipiers l'obligent à refaire la déco de son appartement qui est morose. Il va rencontrer Alyssa, une décoratrice d’intérieur… Parviendront-ils à s’entendre et peut-être plus?

Dès que j’ai vu cette couverture, je me devais de le lire et au final, je ressors de ma lecture mitigée: la première partie est vraiment top, quand ils se rencontrent, quand ils prennent le temps de se connaître mais la seconde partie, je l’ai trouvé longue, répétitive genre je fais deux pas en avant pour trois en arrière, c’était un peu frustrant surtout qu’il y avait un potentiel de dingue! Les personnages sont vraiment touchants et attachants et j’ai adoré voir leurs interactions ensemble pour surmonter leur soucis, ils se poussent vers le haut

En bref, une romance qui a du potentiel mais la seconde partie du livre ne m’a pas convaincue!

I really wanted to like this book but the banter felt very one dimensional. I could not get into it at all.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I had such high hopes for this one with the cute cover and the tropes, but unfortunately I was not able to get into it at all and needed to stop reading.

Ce livre sort le 8 juin prochain mais j’ai eu l’opportunité de le lire avant sa sortie!

Nous allons suivre Nick, un joueur de hockey qui est le seul survivant d’un terrible accident d’avion, qui tente tant bien que mal de reprendre sa place dans sa vie. Un jour, ses coéquipiers l'obligent à refaire la déco de son appartement qui est morose. Il va rencontrer Alyssa, une décoratrice d’intérieur… Parviendront-ils à s’entendre et peut-être plus?

Dès que j’ai vu cette couverture, je me devais de le lire et au final, je ressors de ma lecture mitigée: la première partie est vraiment top, quand ils se rencontrent, quand ils prennent le temps de se connaître mais la seconde partie, je l’ai trouvé longue, répétitive genre je fais deux pas en avant pour trois en arrière, c’était un peu frustrant surtout qu’il y avait un potentiel de dingue! Les personnages sont vraiment touchants et attachants et j’ai adoré voir leurs interactions ensemble pour surmonter leur soucis, ils se poussent vers le haut

En bref, une romance qui a du potentiel mais la seconde partie du livre ne m’a pas convaincue!

Thank you to NetGalley, Katie Kennedy, and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book and review.

This book mix some light lovely romance with some pretty heavy topics of grief. The journey with Nicks grief and healing was written beautifully. I did wish that this book had more to do with hockey like I thought it would have but overall I loved it and had a hard time putting it down!

I am always for a hockey romance and this one was so much more than that. I feel like it was light on the hockey and heavy on overcoming trauma which led this into a more serious book than I expected going in. If you’re for healing, a team who is there for you no matter what, and some love of art and interior design, this book is for you!

This was a cute slow-burn hockey romance. It's told in dual points of view and has an intriguing premise, but I don't know I just struggled vibing with it personally. I can't fault the writer because obviously it takes a tremendous amount of skill and effort to write a book, and that shows. I just personally couldn't connect. Also, I think it was perhaps a bit too smutty than what I was expecting. Like, I was making a serious serious face while reading -- involuntarily.

CW: Grief, Survivor's Guilt

When I strted this book, I thought it would be a 5 star read for me. But I have very mixed feelings upon finishing it.
The first part I loved very very much. The tension was amazing. The icehockey super fun. I was really rooting for the characters.

But as the story went on, it went downhills for me. There was SO much miscommunication. Or simply lack of communication. The trauma aspect also could have used some more nuance in my opinion. It started out so strong. But the ending felt flet and unrealistic. They are shoving stuff onto each other without talking about it and that did not leave a good taste for me. And how quickly they were to forgive each other felt strange. Especially when it was related to the MMC's trauma and guilt. He did not process emotionally and just went for it and that does not do justice to trauma survivers.

But. The conversations around poverty really were impactfull. It really added to the story but I wish it was continued through to the end. I still have quit a few questions...
I would have liked to see more of the relationship between Nick and his team. So the ending felt more natural.

The first part was really fun and I smiled a lot. There was impactfull dialogue. And some really sweet moments. But I missed emotional connection in the spicy scenes and I really wished Nick & Alyssa talked more to each other about important stuff... I have very mixed feelings. I liked it but it could have been better.