I really enjoyed this, and I really appreciated the mc’s being “older”!
The tension and build up was *chefs kiss*

Home Ice Advantage is the third book in the Penalty Box series, each can be read as a standalone but is better in order. This is a grumpy/sunshine, co=workers, sexual awakening book about Ryan and Eric, who are both in their 40's. I loved the characters and the storyline was really good.

I loved this and have re-read it multiple times since I finished it. The lead characters are complext and great to root for.

another winner in this series!! I loved this one and I can already see myself going back and rereading it again. This entire series has been so good and this did not disappoint. I loved the coaching aspect and the slight rivalry. I definitely will recommend this one

4.5 swoony stars
After a bit of an awkward start, this ended up being a delightful read about two opposites in their 40s finding their way home, in many ways.

I've enjoyed the other books in this series, but WOW Baran really hits their stride with this one. I especially appreciated a hockey romance with older characters, lots of lived experiences, and all the associated flaws and struggles that make characters seem real. The romance is really well done, equal parts steamy and kinda cute, but what really brings this to a five-star read are all the other touches - little stuff like arguing over coffee and big stuff like how to make the motley group of players into a winning team. Eric's mom is a fantastic secondary character, so much more than the stock loving parent you see in a lot of romance. There's also lots of great commentary on hockey - the complex ways that prejudice plays out in the league, how getting unfairly pinned with a certain reputation can impact the career of a player or coach, and choices coaches make on how to motivate their players. Eric and Ryan both went into the league with things stacked against them (one's a Jewish player who's kept his sexuality in the closet, the other is shorter than most players and battling the demons of an unsupportive father) and they bring some of that to the events in this book. All of that sets them up as enemies at first but ends up leading to mutual understanding and forging a really strong bond in their relationship, so it's not just their chemistry but also their emotional connection that makes for a very compelling romance. I loved everything about this book and can't wait read more from Ari Baran (Goaltender Interference is next!). Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I particularly love a hockey romance that doesn't revolve around active players because the authors have an opportunity to delve into the nuance of professional sports that wouldn't quite make sense if the characters were 22 year old active NHL players. I think that nuance is what makes this book so wonderful. The only reason this isn't 5 stars for me is because I felt like some of the relationship development was missing where it felt like we could have used a little more lead up. Otherwise, if you love the other Penalty Box books, you'll enjoy this one!

Going through a divorce, Sully’s life is being upended as he gets hired as the new head coach of the Boston hockey team. The problem is that Eric wanted the job, and has to settle for still being the assistant coach. The two butt heads until one day their fighting turns into a passion.

I haven’t read the other two books in this series, but I love a good hockey romance. This one was a little different, where it was the coaches, both retired players, that were the romantic interests. I liked the characters and the development. The spice was decent. But I really didn’t like Sully’s family, and the drama with them felt a bit unresolved.

Overall this book was decent. I may go back and check out the other two in the series now.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for an advanced copy of this book.

I absolutely love this third book of Ari Baran’s! The later in life coming out was so well written. The angst and sexual tension between Ryan and Eric was wonderful. It was basically two grown ass men arguing all the time while simultaneously checking out each other’s butts. It made me so happy to see Ryan finally stand up to his father and do what he needed to do for himself to feel safe and happy. Really a wonderful annoyances/coworkers to lovers romance!

Holy good lord am I freaking OBSESSED with Ari Baran. Ari writes hockey with a love of the sport and the players who commit to their lives to. I loved the soft, swoony romance that is so heart squeezingly tender I could barely get a full breath.

A perfect romance.

Eric and Ryan were great. Enemies to lovers, one stanley cup winner with a sad family situation and another with a great situation coming together gives you the feels. Plus hockey romance, how can you go wrong?

Home Ice Advantage was a sexy, enemies to lovers and finding yourself book. I enjoyed the character development and the plot very much!

I felt it hard to connect to the characters as in their 40s, I saw them more as late 30s but I’m in my 30s so that might be my own bias, but I don’t think it affected the book at all. I love the rivalry between the Eric and Ryan and the grit that they have to pull it together to coach the team against their own feelings. The first hookup scene we were passionate and raw and Ryan didn’t know what to expect and led with feelings and Eric was happy to oblige. It was written very well.

The characters progressed and they both found the courage to talk to their parents about things they’d been holding back, Eric with his sexual orientation, and Ryan with his abusive father.. I liked that Eric and Ryan pulled the best things from each other and found a happy rhythm.

It was a good book and I’d recommend to my friends who like MM romance.

Great lgtbq+ romance book! I have been wanting a book that is gay but has hockey in it since a lot of the Hockey romance books are straight book so I thought the way the romance unfolded was one of the better romance books. Also for it being an enemies to lovers book it was more of a hate to love 💕 but I loved it!

I really liked the overall story, but it was just so much stuff I didn't really care about. I think Ryan just accepted it, like without any thought about it, too fast. And the length of time it took for Eric to just quit being an a**hole. And, I know this setting is a hockey romance, but the details were just too long for me. I don't need to know every single thing about practice.

Thanks for the opportunity to review this book.

Thank you to Harlequin Romance for the review copy. My opinions are my own.

I loved the change of pace from active players to the coaches in this latest story in the Penalty Box series. This one doesn't focus the on the ice action, but the battle of wills that takes place on the sidelines as Eric and Ryan duke it out with trying to get a winning team together while butting heads over coaching styles, personalities, and fighting feelings.

Also these are 40 something guys, who have messy pasts, less than physical perfection bodies, and yet still have a je ne sais quois appeal that transcends and makes for a fantastic story.

Highly recommend for those that love hockey romances.

I really enjoyed reading about middle-aged coaches! The enemies to lovers element worked well in the book, with the discussions in coaching meetings serving as points of tension. The different experiences Sully and Aronson had as players fed into this electric rivalry, as well as Aronson's feelings he was cheated out of the coach position.

My quibble with this book is that it felt like every big issue got minimized and smoothed over: the divorce, bi-awakening, the team's struggles. It kind of took the wind out of the sails of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advance copy in exchange for a fair and honest review of Home Ice Advamtage.

So I didn't realize this was a series when I picked this up and I don't know if that is why I struggled so hard to connet to Eric and Ryan so bad. I really found the beginimg of this book an absolute slog. The ending was beatiful and cute. But I didn't feel much reason to root for these two. Honestly i think they might need to work more on themselves. I wouldn't pick it up again but it was an okay read.

I shouldn't be surprised, but I flew through the third installment in the Penalty Box series by Ari Baran, and loved every second of it!

Former hockey player, Ryan finds outs his wife is leaving him and gets the offer to coach his hometown NHL team all on the same day. When he gets there he meets his assistant coaches including Eric who resents Ryan for basically taking the job he thought was his, and also for how much he's attracted to him. What a way to set up a story! Tension city baby!

Can I just say, as a person who is *ahem* entering middle age *ahem* I am loving seeing more romance with older protagonists! We need love and representation too! And let me tell you, the representation was hot! Kissing to shut my rival up? Check! Bi-sexual awakening? Check! Workplace romance? Check! Grumpy-sunshine? Check!

Ari really knows how to write compelling characters and great stories full of feeling! Auto-buy author for sure!

Home Ice Advantage is the third book in Ari Baran’s Penalty Box series, and my favourite so far. It’s a rivals-to-lovers romance between two guys in their forties, both former players-turned-coaches working with a struggling hockey team in a rebuilding year. I admit that I struggled with some of the hockey nitty-gritty - which had me glazing over in places - but despite that and a couple of other niggles, I enjoyed it a lot.

Former pro-hockey player Ryan Sullivan enjoys coaching the local pee wee (age twelve and under) team – although he could do without the pushy parents. On the day of his forty-fifth birthday, he returns home from a game to discover that his wife has changed the locks and is petitioning for divorce. Completely blindsided, Ryan is sitting outside the house in his car wondering what to do next when he gets a call from the general manager of the Boston Beacons - the hockey team he’d dreamed of playing for as a kid - asking if he’d be interested in joining them as head coach. Going back home to Boston isn’t something Ryan has done for quite a while (and tries to do as infrequently as possible), but this is a huge opportunity and one that is unlikely to come his way again in the near future. The team is not exactly setting the hockey world on fire - languishing near the bottom of the league and made up of an uncomfortable mixture of newbies and older players nearing retirement - but Ryan spent the tail-end of his playing career coaching rookies, learning about all the “newfangled training regimes” and all the new pitfalls, and he has a ton of ideas as to how to really build a team and focus on development. If he can be assured he’ll be allowed to do it his way, without too much interference from the suits – he’s in.

Eric Aronson, another former player Ryan knows vaguely through their clashes on the ice and through Eric’s reputation for hot-headedness, is one of the Beacons’ assistant coaches and had pretty much expected to be promoted to head coach himself. Sure, Sullivan is a ‘name’ – a story, even – a guy who’d been told all his life that he was too small to play hockey and then not only proved the naysayers wrong, but proved them wrong in spectacular fashion with a Stanley Cup win, an MVP award, a place in the hall of fame and a load of other accolades to boot. Eric’s claim to fame might only be the times he’d lost his temper and done something stupid on the ice, but he’s been coaching here for several years, while the highest level Sullivan has ever coached is pee wee. Damn straight Eric is angry and frustrated at being passed over for the top job. He’s even more pissed off the next morning, when he and the other assistant coach are summoned to a meeting with Sullivan, who promptly starts talking about setting aside any awkwardness and creating a collaborative work environment. And worse – dammit – Ryan Sullivan is one hot silver fox.

Ryan can’t fail to be aware of Eric’s animosity and the reason for it, but as the weeks and months pass they reach a kind of détente and are working together – after a fashion – for the good of the team. But things come to a head after a game in which Eric gives a few players instructions that countermand Ryan’s, and Ryan has finally had enough of the other man’s resentment and hostility and decides it’s time to confront him. A vicious argument is cut off when Eric suddenly lunges for Ryan and kisses him – and amazed, Ryan (who has never so much as considered kissing a man before), finds himself kissing him back.

I will admit that this ‘inciting incident’ does feel as though it comes somewhat out of the blue, even though there are hints at a mutual attraction beforehand. Eric has certainly noticed Ryan’s looks and body and that Ryan has taken to looking at him when he doesn’t think Eric is looking, and Ryan finds himself actually seeing Eric for the first time, his tall, lanky body and striking features, his big, dark brown eyes and mop of unruly curls – and the author does a pretty good job of setting it up as a real coup de foudre for both men, an explosion of tension and emotion that doesn’t go the way they’d expected. And I liked that there’s no ‘this can’t happen again’ discussion which they both immediately disregard; Ryan and Eric don’t decide they want to be in a relationship but they nonetheless just… fall into one without realising that’s what they’re doing (idiots-to-lovers is such fun ;)) and best of all, they don’t have major personality transplants in order to do it. Eric is as prickly and snarky as ever (although his snark turns teasing rather than antagonistic) and Ryan remains earnest, sweet and dedicated to doing his best for the team.

Ryan and Eric are well-developed characters who experience the kind of growth I felt was missing in the previous book (Delay of Game), and I liked that they’re both mature individuals who are capable of communicating and behaving like adults. Neither of them has had an easy ride - Ryan might have been an NHL star, but his family life is toxic; his father is controlling and takes every opportinuty to belittle him despite everything he’s achieved, and his brothers – who all played hockey themselves to varying levels – are obviously jealous of him and follow their father’s lead. Eric was one of the very few Jewish players in the league, and while his relationship with his elderly mother is a loving one, he hid his bisexuality from her and his father for years for fear they’d think less of him, and now regrets not coming out to his father before he died. They’re different in so many ways, yet similar in how they’ve had to fight for what they really want, and I enjoyed watching them evolve as characters, Ryan learning to stand his ground, Eric to be more open. The conflict in the story is a mix of internal and external (Ryan’s awful family, job offers, uncooperative players) but there’s no third-act break-up, and it’s so refreshing to read a romance that doesn’t rely on manufactured misunderstandings for there to be effective obstacles for the lovers to overcome.

I had a few fairly minor issues with the story, however. I’ve already mentioned the over-abundance of hockey, which I freely admit is more of a ‘me’ thing than a book thing because I know very little about the sport. The fact that Ryan is having a relationship with a subordinate is mentioned briefly but is never really addressed, and there’s an odd scene in the last part of the book where a secondary character confesses he’s been in love with Ryan for years, which comes out of the blue and feels awkward. (Maybe it's setting up a future book?).

It seems to me that Ari Baran has really hit their stride with this book. I liked the first two Penalty Box books well enough, but they’ve upped their game with Home Ice Advantage. The characterisation is stronger and more consistent than before, the romance is much better developed and the conflicts are realistic and well-portrayed. I’m always up for a love story featuring older (than the norm) protagonists,and I especially like reading about charaters who have been through whatever life has thrown at them and are coming out the other side as the person they were always meant to be. Home Ice Advantage is a terrific addition to the ranks of m/m hockey romance, and earns a strong recommendation.

B+/4.5 stars

Heat Factor: “You’re so infuriating, I can’t help jumping your bones!”

Character Chemistry: I bet the younger folks can’t imagine it being real (pfft), but two forty-somethings playing together is pretty fun to read

Plot: Ryan’s life just went belly-up, but now he’s the new head coach for an NHL team, which is something that his assistant coach, who wanted the job for himself, cannot STAND.

Overall: I couldn’t put this one down

Two hockey coaches over forty. What else do you need to know?

What makes me want to devour Ari Baran’s books is their talent for creating emotional depth between their protagonists by showing the reader little telling actions and choices, making space for the reader to draw conclusions about the burgeoning relationship. These are character-driven stories, with tension hinging on how this relationship—that started as not even a situationship—can become something real, and Home Ice Advantage is no exception. I actually texted Ingrid and Holly that we should write a “Situationships” Saturday Smutty Six because this book is a perfect example of a situationship that turns into a deeply meaningful relationship without these guys ever having that discussion. Then, when decisions have to be made, they’re stuck, forced to be open and vulnerable or to run away.

This story features Ryan and Eric. Ryan comes from an abusive home in south Boston, and his wife served him divorce papers for his 45th birthday, but he loves hockey, and his career afforded him the opportunity to become a mentor and create positive space for his team. Eric comes from a very loving, Jewish French Canadian home, but he gained a reputation for being a pugnacious hothead during his hockey career, and he’s been closeted his whole life. When the Boston hockey team fired its head coach, Eric expected to be offered the job, but management decided to try something different and called up Ryan, who had never before coached at the NHL level.

If you don’t love character-driven stories that are relatively low stakes, or romances that portray a kind of real-life evolution of building intimacy to a deeply committed relationship, this book is probably not for you. What I like about it is exactly that. Eric cannot stand Ryan when they meet. He’s a real peach. But he also can’t fail to admit that he finds Ryan very attractive. Ryan, who married his college girlfriend and has been with no one else for twenty-seven years, is completely oblivious that it might not be totally straight to ogle men appreciatively. Once Eric opens Ryan’s eyes… I don’t know how to describe how they behave together except “they play together.” Ryan has a little golden retriever energy and pokes and prods at Eric until Eric plays back. He starts role-playing games and just stays in character until Eric plays back. Eric can be witheringly sarcastic, and Ryan understands that he’s getting that as a form of Eric’s affection. It’s completely charming, made more so because these guys are both over forty and this relationship breathes new life into both of them because they can play together.

Here’s a little taste of what I mean, from a scene where they’re waking up and getting ready for the day together (and Eric is a huge coffee snob):

"“The only way she’s leaving Montreal is in a coffin,” Eric muttered. “Born and raised there. Loves it. I offered to move her out close to me, since she’s kind of frail these days, and she refused—what are you doing to that coffee?”

"“Making it drinkable,” Sully said, as he dumped heaping teaspoons full of sugar into the cup, followed by long glugs of hazelnut-flavored creamer.

"“Oh my god. Jesus, Sully, you do this every morning?”

"“I go to Dunkin’ every morning, usually. But someone insisted on making coffee here.”

"Eric reached out and gripped his shoulders, and said, “Ryan Sullivan, I’m going to fix you. Somehow. I’m going to teach you how to be better.”

"Instead of answering or trying to twist out of his grip, Sully went up on his tiptoes and kissed Eric on the mouth. It was disgusting. He tasted like morning breath and artificial hazelnut and sugar, and somehow, Eric was still kissing him back anyway, his hands slipping down to grip Sully by the biceps.

"“Oh,” Sully said, with a little sigh as he pulled away, “you want breakfast? We have time. I have eggs.”

"“You really missed your calling as a lawyer. Very convincing argument, right there.”"

And these little moments and scenes and opportunities to make a choice of “get closer” or “push away” build the intimacy between these characters SO WELL, and we the readers know it and can see it, but the characters are not there yet. We get to look forward to the moment they WAKE UP. So thrilling.

One other thing I appreciated about this book that wasn’t really a central thread to the narrative is that Ryan and Eric are very different men. They have different people skills, different ideas about how to approach coaching, and Ryan’s version is “winning.” Ryan is charismatic—everyone stops to listen to him, he can pump up a room, he has a knack for knowing when to speechify and when to give the players space—and his approach to coaching is all about growth and positivity—no yelling, no punitive discipline, just constructive feedback and practice focusing on skill development—and it’s a rebuilding year, so no one expects the team to make it to the playoffs, but Ryan’s win-lose ratio is showing that he’s successful. Eric sees that, and he knows he’s not like that, and that’s really hard for him.

"People didn’t respond to him the way they responded to Sullivan. That was a personality failing, maybe."

Now, Eric believes in himself and his ability to be a head coach someday, and he never quite overtly acknowledges that he and Ryan can just be different and that’s fine, but as a person who struggled for-freaking-ever with not magically becoming the charismatic popular classmate/officemate who simply knew what to say and when to say it and how to draw other people in as naturally as breathing, Eric’s struggle resonated with me in ways I didn’t expect. There are a lot of abrasive characters in romance novels, but there aren’t many abrasive characters who are made to feel the flaw because they’ve found themselves in a situation where it matters professionally, and there’s not really anything they can do to fix it.

I know it’ll shock no one, but I really liked this book. And I hope all my squeeing about other hockey romances doesn’t drown out all the reasons why this one was such an uplifting read.

I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.