Delilah "Lila" Baker is a baker (funny right?) and the host of a small cable network baking show. Ian is an NHL hockey player returning to play for his hometown team, which his parents own, but he's been the subject of bad press about his relationships in the past. Lila and Ian team up to do a little fake dating and have Ian as a guest on her show to boost her viewership and boost Ian's image. We can't forget that Lila has been pinning over Ian since she was a kid and now is finally her chance to have him, but will it be real or just for show?

This was a fun hockey romance read. Brother's best friend is one of my favorite tropes and this one did it well. Lila and Ian seemed like a great fit for each other and just needed a little push for Ian to realize it. The plot did slow down a little at points, but not too much. The concept was cute and I liked how their relationships slowly gross. Its a slow burn, which normally isn't my favorite, but this one worked. Overall I enjoyed this book and give it 4 of 5 stars.

Fake dating is always silly and fun and I think The Game Changer will appeal to folks who aren't looking for more than that in a book. Lana Ferguson always writes sexy little books and the spicy scenes carry The Game Changer. Hockey fans will likely enjoy this more than most. The cooking show piece was a different take on a traditional hockey romance and I found that refreshing.

unfortunately for me i just cant get into this one or really connect with the two main characters, i think the idea of this one is super cute and i get that they’ve known each other for forever and previously had feelings so while its not insta lovey dovey for them it was for me and i wouldve liked a bit more tension between the two.

i think i may try and come back to this one in the future when the feeling is right but i cant force it anymore.

This was different than Lana’s other books but I really enjoyed it. Lana writes an excellent sports romance.

When Ian is in a PR nightmare and Delilah's ratings are lackluster, they are thrown together in a scenario that will help both of them out. And after seeing one another for just a few days, Delilah knows that the crush she had on her brother's best friend when she was younger is back full force. Ian never saw Delilah in that kind of light, but he is seeing her now. Too bad he lives with her brother and he can't cross that line.
When they are forced to make it "look like" they are dating things start to get real though. The lines are blurred and Ian has no idea why he hasn't been seeing her like this all along.
I loved Delilah and I loved Ian even more. He had such a disaster going on in his personal life and I felt terrible for him. He was such a good person but his family and the press just really took him down, to the point he could barely function outside in the world. Delilah helped him breathe again. Their story was sweet and spicy, just like a Lana Ferguson book should be.
Thank you to Lana, Netgalley and Berkley for an early copy.

I have read many Hockey Romances this year to the point where they have all blurred together - however, this one stood out like a shining star! It was sooooo refreshing to read a brother's best friend trope where they don't hate each other, the brother doesn't overreact to their love and all around was such a great read. Equal parts sweet and spicy with such a fresh sense of humour I can see myself reaching for this as my next go to comfort read - will for sure be recommending to anyone who will listen!!

4.5 stars!!

First of all, I want to thank NetGalley and Berkley for granting me this ARC. However, due to recent information that has come forward regarding Lana Ferguson and her previously published fan fiction depicting racist stereotypes, I no longer feel comfortable reading and reviewing her work.

RATING: 2/5 STARS

This book didn't really grab me, felt like a generic hockey romance... but I otherwise love Lana Ferguson's work and will definitely be trying her next book!

The Game Changer by Lara Ferguson was such a fun, swoony and entertaining read. Lana Ferguson's writing is so delightful and fun. You're guaranteed to have a good time when you pick up a Lana Ferguson book. The Game Changer is probably the best book to pick up for the summer. It's joyful, it's steamy and the characters are nothing but loveable. The writing is fun and keeps you hooked from the start. It's both spicy yet heartwarming. Overall, a fantastic summer romance read.

This book disappointed me, a lot. I really enjoyed Lana's first two books, but this one was just lackluster and really threw me. Sports romance is not one of my main genres, but I do read and enjoy it. That isn't the problem with this book, the sports are fine. Honestly, it's characters and plot, which were pretty strong in The Nanny and and The Fake Mate.

What I liked: the inital premise did seem interesting to me. Oooh, he has bad press but they have good chemistry, so commence fake relationship! I also liked that Delilah has a strong, loving relationship with her weird brother.

What I didn't like: pretty much everything else. The world feels notably underdeveloped. For starters, Delilah has no friends outside work. The work friends she does have don't have any personality, they're just cutouts to bounce jokes off of. I liked Delilah's agent, but that's pretty much it. We don't know much of anything about Delilah, other than she is perfect. She does charity with orphans because she was one, and she's a caretaker, she wants to look after people. She's a pastry chef who trained in France, and God save me from the cringey French in the book. She's has an obsessive crush on her brother's best friend since she was a little kid, and they haven't seen each other in years.

I really wanted to like Ian, I did. It's just that he was so BORING. Like Delilah, he is perfect and has been wronged by the world. His marriage fell apart but it wasn't his fault! No spoilers, but while there is some blame to be thrown around, I saw right through the twist since Ian's dad is such an ass.

I think the main thing (aside from the utter boredom and total lack of pacing) is that it weirdly leans into the incestuousness? Like, there is no ACTUAL incest, as Ian and Delilah are not related. But Ian has been in their lives for twenty years, and thinks of Delilah's brother as a brother. He also *thought* of Delilah as a kid sister before they met again as adults. Then there are these jokes like "my brother is fucking my sister, ewwww." I really didn't like that! They kept talking about how connected they were as kids, and all of the sweet memories they have together. I like friends to lovers, but this doesn't feel that way to me? Maybe I am just not cut out for "brother's best friend" romances, I don't know. I also think it's just rote and kinda dull. So far, all of Ferguson's female main characters have a few things in common: 1) no parents for one reason or another 2) significantly younger than the male MC and 3) aparently totally unaware of what it looks like when a man finds one attractive. I just find MCs with too similar backrounds to be a red flag in terms of bad writing, plus there's the laziness of "she's an orphan so she's inherently sympathetic."

I think given the other controversy re: this author I'll just cut my losses here. Too bad.

This is somehow the cutest and the hottest thing I’ve read in awhile 🤭 I’ve been wanting to read this ever since Lana teased it, so thank you so much, Berkley, for making that happen!

So Delilah, aka Dee/Lila, is a Boston-famous baker with her own tv show. Lately, ratings have been dwindling down, so she has a brilliant idea to get someone from her brother’s team, Boston’s beloved pro hockey team, to make a guest appearance on the show. PR team says yes, and sends someone whose online image needs some help as well. That someone? Lila’s childhood crush Ian, aka her big brother’s best friend. The one she hasn’t seen in 7 years. The one who hasn’t seen HER since she was a “knobby-kneed teenager”. The internet, of course, loved the chemistry between these two and are totally shipping them. Everyone decides it’s good for both their image/ratings to “keep up the ruse”. And so begins the fake dating goodness.

I really enjoyed this book! It was such a fun read. I loved the side characters, they all added an extra layer of interest. The steam? It was steaming hot, for sure. If you’ve read Lana’s other books, then you’d know. 🥵 That locker room scene?!

If you’re looking for a fun, swoony read with lots of steam, look no further. You even get hot hockey players as a bonus. 😉

Ian is a hockey player getting bad press about a messy breakup that happened years ago. His best friend's little sister, Delilah, is a baker on a tv show struggling with poor ratings. They hatch a plan to fake date in order to gain higher numbers for Delilah's show and cast Ian in a more positive light to the team's fans. With more than just their careers on thin ice, the line between what’s real and what’s for show begins to blur, but one thing’s for certain: This PR stunt will either be a total game changer—or leave them both totally pucked.

This is Ferguson's first sports romance and she nailed it. It's cute, it's got puns, there's family drama, and yes it has spice. Best of all, there ISN'T a miscommunication trope. Hooray! Hockey romance readers and fans of Ferguson's previous two books will enjoy this novel.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley.

With the Game Changer Lana Ferguson once again hit it out of the park --- hockey rink?!
Six years ago Ian left Boston amid a PR scandal. Now he's back to play for his home team.... except the bad press is still haunting him. In hopes of revamping his troublesome image the teams PR wiz volnutells him to participate in a local baking show episode before the season starts. The host of the show is none other than his best friend and teammate's little sister Delilah whom he hasn't seen since leaving for college.
Before she even knew what it meant to have a crush or be in love Delilah was smitten with her older brother's (Jack) best friend, Ian. Too young to catch his attention as a preteen and teen she tagged along with him until he disappeared off to college. Logically she knows that his marriage and the alleged affair that still follow him aren't the Ian she's always known but when he's thrust upon her (metaphorically) as the solution to save her failing tv show Delilah has to decide if faking a relationship with her teen-love is going to set her kitchen on fire.

Tropes to Expect: <spoiler> brother’s best friend, friends to lovers, second chance romance, fake dating, "age gap", no third act break up </spoiler>.

TW: discussion of cheating (not by MC's), toxic and neglectful parent relationships

4.5 stars (rounded to 5) 3/5 steam.

The Game Changer was my first Lana Ferguson book, and it definitely didn’t disappoint!

Lila and Ian are so cute! Once they actually start dating the book really picks up, and I couldn’t put it down. The beginning was a little slow for me, mostly because I don’t love insta-love, but after we got past that it flowed really well and I loved the story.

Read this book if you love
🧁 sports romance
🧁 baked goods
🧁 mutual pining
🧁 family drama
🧁 hot af spice (🥵)

I will definitely be reading Lana Ferguson’s next tier books! 4 stars.

My review will be posted on Instagram 1-14 days before publication, and on Amazon in publication day.

Fake dating meets brother’s best friend meets second chance romance (kind of) in this slowwwwww burn romance. A really sweet love story that will have you kicking your feet and blushing as you turn the page.

From the author who brought us The Nanny, to now The Game Changer.

A baker and a hockey player. Not your typical chic-lit, but this romance couldn't be sweeter, pun intended.

Friends to lovers, sports, hockey, just to name a couple tropes.

Loveable characters, perfect amount of banter, tons of chemistry, and throw in some spice.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Note: This review is for an ARC and is my unbiased opinion.

The Game Changer was adorable! Here's what I loved about it:

* The way Ferguson used the brother's best friend trope in a sports romance.
* Delilah's cooking show and Ian's appearances on it.
* Ian realizing his best friend's sister is no longer the girl who used to tag along with them as kids.
* How supportive Delilah was of people in her life, including Ian and her brother.
* The fake dating.
* The real falling.
* That Delilah's childhood crush came true.
* The little drama with Ian's family.
* Delilah's on the verge of annoying brother, Jack.
*The HEA.

This was one of those fun to read romances that made me happy. Delilah and Ian were a great couple. I hope Ferguson will give us a book for Jack soon because he is a character who needs his own HEA.

Lana Ferguson, I love you. Your novels always entertain me, making anything but reading impossible. I find that when I'm reading your characters I'm Lol-ing, cheering them on, or fanning myself from the heat level. Game Changer continues that trend.

In this novel we have Lila and Ian--two people who've known each other since their childhood--thrown together by their PR people to try to improve his image and her show ratings. No biggie, right? Wellllll, for Lila, she's had a massive crush on Ian for forever and for Ian, he's her brother's best friend....and the Lila he knew when she was much younger has grown into an attractive, funny, and smart woman. So while both of them agree to do this faux dating thing, they both figure out really quickly how hard it's going to be. Neither of them can seem to stop obsessively thinking about the other and are worried about ruining things, but once they figure that out, it's game on. They flirt and make out and fall hard for each other, with the only obstacle being Lila's brother Jack. Fortunately, Lana Ferguson takes it easy on us and doesn't make us die before we get to their HEA. Like my reading of The Nanny, I'd love to return to this world and get to know more of the other characters, but I don't think that will happen, so I'll just happily wait for the next thing that Lana Ferguson gives us.

I'll admit, I sighed a little.bit when I saw this book was about hockey. Why so many books about hockey lately? But I've enjoyed Lanka's books in the past, so I was happy to.give it a try. Lo and behold, this may be my favorite. While I'm 100% in favor of the female gaze, it was a fun twist to read male gaze as written by a woman. Its a whole different kind of spice. Very fun. Thanks for.sharing the ARC!

Delilah is a baker with a show on Boston airwaves, popular but losing a bit of viewership. Ian is a hockey player who recently returned from Calgary but suffering from a bit of an image problem. Enter one of our favorite tropes: they are made to work together on her baking show to rehab his image and raise her viewership. But plot twist, she already knows this red-haired hockey player; he is best friends with her brother and she’s nursed a pretty hardcore crush for him over the years. Now they’re back in proximity and he realizes she’s not the little girl she used to be.

I enjoyed this hockey romance - it is so much better written than a lot of them - and the whole thing was a fun will they/won’t they turned into a secret romance. Even the slow burn of it and age gap was fairly hot, and the spicy scenes were … spicy. I think this book set Ferguson up to do another - we have a fun, quirky character in her brother Jack. Overall, good writing, fun plotline, and a definite addition to the hockey romance genre. Highly recommended!