I am a fan of Lexi’s through her TikTok page. I’ve always enjoyed listening to her talk about what it is actually like being a wag to a NHL player. She has so much knowledge into the sport that I was excited to read this book since I am a huge hockey romance fan. Unfortunately this book was not for me. The biggest issue I had with this book is the writing style. It doesn’t work for me and needs some improvement. Throughout the book there would be one or two sentences or dialogue and then paragraphs of narrative. By the time you get back to the dialogue you forget what the characters were even talking about. Now the main characters did not work for me. They might work for other readers but the main girl did not come off edgy and uncaring but came off rude, ungrateful, and no work ethic to me. The main guy was nothing special, besides being obsessed with her, he didn’t bring anything else to the table. I will say that her knowledge of the sport did show throughout the book. But that didn’t make up for everything else for me.

I love hockey romance, I usually gobble them up within a day or two but something about this one made it feel drawn out. There was nothing particularly wrong with the story, I think I just didn't click with the FMC. Overall, I loved the plot and how each character had unique friends and aspirations. I also always love when hockey novels actually get the lingo and logistics correct. Some authors you can tell never step food in an arena and its super hard to look past, but this author knew great details and made it easy to picture things. I cannot wait to see if there will be more within this hockey world. I know the author will definitely only improve from this debut!

Thank you @netgalley, Lexi LaFleur Brown, and the publisher for a eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Jaylen has had a string of bad luck but all that changes when Lucy runs into him at a bar. Literally. The two have an instant connection and spend one night together before he leaves town. Only he doesn't end up leaving town. The team that had cut him now wants him back. Eager to hold onto his luck for as long as he can, Jaylen asks Lucy for her help. Soon they are trading favors back and forth and growing closer as friends. Maybe luck isn't what happens to you, but instead is what you make out of life.

Read if you like:
-Opposites Attract
-Reverse Grumpy Sunshine
-Luck/Fate
-Meet Cutes
-Emotional Journey

This was such a fun hockey rom-com! I was constantly smiling as I read it. I loved Jaylen's character, but I felt like I connected with Lucy just a little bit more. Like her, there were times in my life that I felt a little bit lost. Her emotional journey was so satisfying. I would definitely read more from Lexi LaFleur Brown!

I love Lexi LaFleur Brown and I am so proud of her for writing this book!!! If you enjoy hockey romances, you're going to enjoy this book - it's as simple as that. Jaylen and Lucy are fun, fresh, spunky, sexy, and so damn hot. I loved their characters separately and I could not get enough of them together.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing/Canary Street Press for the arc!!!

Shoot Your Shot is a super fun, fresh take on the traditional hockey romance novel!

It is so clear from early on in this book that Lexi really knows the ins and outs of hockey and the NHL, which is so refreshing in the hockey romance space, where the small details are either in error or omitted all together. As a hockey fan myself, all the small details about the game itself and the lives of NHL players was a wonderful addition to what was already a really unique and enjoyable story.

Lucy and Jaylen were also two non-traditional characters within the niche genre of hockey romance. I loved being able to see Jaylen grow into a superstar in the league. It was refreshing to see his development as a player and a character instead of him already being a superstar in the league. Lucy is about as non-traditional of a female lead in this genre as you can get, and I loved it. I think it opens up a conversation to welcome a more diverse population into hockey in general.

Lucy and Jaylen are backed up by an amazing cast of supporting characters who I adored. I'll just leave it at the fact that I love Soko and would love to see him get a book of his own one day.

There were a couple missing plot points that I would have liked to see more thoroughly filled, but other than that, this was a super fun read for any sports romance fan!

Thank you so much to Lexi and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

As a pretty big hockey fan, I had followed Lexi on social media for years, and when she announced she was writing a hockey romance book, I added it to by TBR before it even had a title.

This book was everything I wanted in a hockey romance. I loved how detailed the characters were from their backgrounds to their apartment decor. I could easily picture JJ and Lucy, and Lexi’s writing was amazing and so detailed!

The conflicts, the tension, the chemistry!! I ate each chapter up between Lucy and JJ’s text banter to JJ at practice to Lucy trying to secure that tattoo apprenticeship. No notes, pure perfection in my opinion.

On a more personal note, I absolutely love that Lexi opted to include Pride Night and other LGBTQ+ events in the book, as well as the Pride Tape on the stick in the cover. Pride Night and Pride Tape are both very near and dear to my heart, and knowing other readers will enjoy those scenes and images make my heart go pitter patter <3

SOCIAL MEDIA/BLOG: review is live on my Instagram, Goodreads, and StoryGraph (all linked below!)

Shoot You Shot | Lexi LeFleur Brown
4 ⭐️

I have been counting down the days until this book releases (March 11!) and was so excited to get an ARC (thank you NetGalley + Harlequin Trade Publishing).

I’ve been a longtime follower of Lexi on TikTok and was very excited that my favorite former NHL WAG was writing a hockey romance novel - my favorite!

Lucy isn’t looking for love in the club. She’s just trying to grab a drink, avoid all her one night stands, and get back to her sketchbook as quickly as possible. *Enter Jaylen* a down on his luck, unemployed hockey player. He’s all heart eyes, as he chases Lucy around town and after one night together, his luck finally starts to turn around.

Now he only has to convince his lucky charm to stick around…

🥅 hockey romance
✨ lucky charm
💕 meet cute
🤝 mental health representation
🏳️‍🌈 lgbtq+ representation
🖤 POC MMC

I’ve read probably over 100 hockey romances and this one definitely has the most “NHL accurate” source as Lexi is married to a former player. I can confirm I’ve never seen the term “healthy scratch” or “one timer specialist” in a hockey book before 😅. I didn’t feel like her accuracy negated all of the other books I’ve read before (outside of most of the relationships portrayed being outright not allowed/ not happening), which was also nice. If you’ve followed Lexi on TikTok for any amount of time, her voice and humor is very apparent throughout. I will say this read was a slow start, and the first half felt a little unpolished. Overall, excited to have Lexi’s voice in the hockey romance world!

#hockeyromance #sportsromance #fiction #whatimreading #romancereader #romancenovel #alyssarecommends

Shoot Your Shot is a fun debut novel from Lexi LaFleur Brown that I’ve (personally) been VERY excited to read after following Lexi on socials for quite some time.

This book is a shorter read, right at 300 pages, and I sped through it in an evening. Jaylen and Lucy’s story is cute yet steamy, but what I enjoyed the most was the accuracy. Hockey facts were correct, and actually realistic (thanks to Lexi’s background) and it felt more realistic (not everyone is the greatest at everything).

My only qualm is that I felt like the book lacked some necessary character development. This added development would have given the book more depth and wouldn’t have made it too long, given the current 300 page count.

Overall liked the book and can’t wait to see what Lexi writes next!

Thank you Net Galley and Canary Street for this ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Shoot Your Shot by Lexi LaFleur Brown is a hockey romance that was such a refreshing take on this subgenre of romance. The main female character is queer, and so are her two best friends, the main male character is a Black hockey player who struggles with anxiety and depression, and everything about this felt so natural in this book. There was a perfect balance of realism and escapism that made this romance work so well. The romance felt perfectly paced for me as someone who doesn’t love an insta-love romance, but insta-lust works totally fine for me. The side characters felt important, developed, and like real people, which made the reading experience much more enjoyable for me. The conflicts felt real, which I think is a testament to how well developed the characters were. This books breaks free from a lot of the pitfalls that I think make hockey romance specifically feel kind of tired and overdone.

As a long time follower of Lexi LaFleur Brown, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy of this book the moment it was announced. She used her lived experiences to make a romance novel that felt like a story I could just walk into. It didn’t didn’t feel so out of the realm of reality that I had to suspend my disbelief. I really appreciate how the author interwove the topics of queer and BIPOC people in the world of hockey, as well as the frank discussion of mental illness, therapy, and medication. This book was a joy to read and I was rooting for Lucy and Jaylen the entire way through. I can’t wait to read what she writes next.

A one night stand turn to "be my good luck charm" to lovers... This was cute!

Jaylen was just like this chill dude all around who plays hockey and was cut from the team but after a one night stand with Lucy, he gets a permanent spot on the team for a year at the very least. Lucy, trying to be a tattoo artist, gets a shove from her rude boss to paint a mural for the hockey arena. Then Jay plays the best game he's played in a while, he wants her to be his good luck charm and it works!

They both aren't looking for a relationship but they have this pull to each other. So magnetic even though Lucy is a bit brash compared to Jay. They have a lot of fun together. I absolutely loved her friends Maya and Cooper. Cooper is a riot and Maya doesn't let Lucy put herself down.

I was so proud of Lucy for finally standing up to her dad in a big way, he didn't deserve a daughter like her.

1.5 ⭐️

This book is a hockey romance written by Tiktok mogul Lexi LaFleur Brown. It follows our main characters who are on a fast track to each other after running into each other for the first time at a popular bar, and stealing a sign from a tattoo shop. It truly was love at first sight…

I really wanted to like this since I know the author is very knowledgeable on the subject, but the writing style just wasn’t something I could overlook this time. It was a cute story, but it struggled to keep me engaged for most of the book. I felt myself skimming just for the sake of finishing it, which is never something I want to do.

All in all, the writing felt very new and modern, using words that I use in day-to-day conversations, but that I don’t typically see in books. That took some adjusting, but it could help to pull in and engage younger audiences, which could definitely be a benefit.

ARC REVIEW

This book was a solid 3 star read for me. It felt very slow for some reason and that made it difficult for me to actually get into and stay interested in the book. I think the book overall was cute though and a fairly decent hockey romance.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this ARC :)

If you love hockey romances this is a great read!! Lucy and Jaylen are the classic “not looking for love” characters who, through trials and tribulations, realize they are made for one another! I loved how the author highlighted LGBTQIA+, mental health/substance abuse and racial issues with such grace and care. There are themes that can be difficult to write well and I think the author did a great job at portraying the difficulties that our main characters faced and how they were able to lean on one another. I do wish we got a bit more backstory with our FMC. The romance and spice is definitely there too! I read this book in a day, i couldn’t put it down!

Thank you to Edelweiss and Canary Ink Press/Afterglow Books by Harlequin/Harlequin Trade Publishing for providing me with an egalley of this title to read and give my honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
I really should learn to avoid TikTok influencer books. More often than not I am disappointed with them. But the blurb really caught my eye, the reviews seemed positive, and I love me a hockey romance. So I decided to give it a shot (no pun intended). To say I'm disappointed in the execution of this book is an understatement. It really did have great bones but there were so many things wrong with it.
The plot was typical of a hockey romance if a bit cliché. The hockey star takes a downfall and needs to build his career back up. He meets a manic pixie girl and they connect with a hot one night stand never thinking they'll see each other again. Of course their paths cross again and each time the hockey has a great game. So, of course, she's his lucky charm. But she has no intention of letting another relationship get in the way. Of course that pesky little thing called love gets in the way. While the pacing was pretty fast for this one, it was stunted in many places due to awkward dialogue and weird switches in POV.
The romance was ok. I would have liked to see a better development. I just didn't feel the chemistry between the FMC and MMC. They were so very different it was a wonder they connected at all. And, while I know opposites can attract, the author really needed to show this to us and it didn't happen. And the spicy scenes just were not done well. They were super rushed and awkward. I didn't feel any passion between the characters. The scenes made me cringe and were more clinical than emotional.
Speaking of showing, that didn't happen in this book. There was so much telling. And there were weird medical terms used throughout that just took me right out of the story. Can such terms be used in books, of course, but it's how they were use that totally baffled me. They just seemed so random. Who mentions things like UTI, adenoids, apena, vascular, and trypanophobia would be understood by someone in the medical field (such as myself, since I'm a nurse) but the general public will not know what these things are. I also saw this with the hockey terms. I love me some hockey and it was obvious the author had some good knowledge in this area. But I don't know a lot of the terms. And neither did the FMC. A perfect way for the author to have explained some of the words she was using would have been to have the MMC teach the FMC these terms as it would have also helped the reader.
As for the characters, they were relatable for the most part but I feel like if you're putting a POC into the story there's a reason for it. There is racism alluded to, but we never see it or how it may have affected the character. Same with the LBGTQ representation. For the most part this was done well but I did see some stereotypes woven into the story, and not in any type of positive way. And the mental health that was addressed was a super important part of the MMC but it doesn't happen until about half way through the book. These aspects of the characters needed more exploration. I feel like using such designations in a book are usually done for a reason and I need them to be done well so I can understand the importance of them being included in the story. I feel like having this information and showing us why it is important would have helped me connect more with the characters as I really didn't feel this connection. Overall the main characters came across as flat for me.
I had issues with the FMC, Lucy, and her profession. She's an artist. But she wants to tattoo. But she has never tattooed before. She draws and paints, but not tattoos. She does all kinds of other things. There's no real understanding as to why she wants this profession. I feel like there needed to be more included for me to understand. It came across as not much research being done in this area.
While the book wasn't terrible and the bones are there for a great story, the execution was very lacking. I felt like it needs a lot more editing. I'm hoping the final version would be more tight where this is concerned. There were many times I wanted to DNF this book but I pushed in the hopes the story would take a turn for the better. But it never did. The book honestly left me with more questions than answers. The premise was good with a nice cast of diverse characters but the book itself just had too many issues for me to love it.

🏒✨ Shoot Your Shot by Lexi LaFleur Brown ✨🏒

🔥 Steamy Hockey Romance? Check. A dash of superstition? Double check.
Jaylen “JJ” Jones thought his hockey career was over—until a one-night stand with an aspiring tattoo artist, Lucy Ross, changes everything. When a last-minute NHL roster spot opens up, Jaylen becomes convinced she’s his lucky charm. The catch? He needs Lucy to stick around to keep his career afloat.

🎨 Meanwhile, Lucy’s in her own slump. Struggling to kick-start her tattooing career, she reluctantly agrees to Jaylen’s proposition: she’ll send him good luck texts in exchange for tattooing practice.

✨ But what starts as a simple arrangement quickly gets… complicated.
Their sizzling chemistry is undeniable, but Lucy’s past heartbreaks make her wary of getting attached. And Jaylen? He’s laser-focused on his career and can’t afford distractions—or so he thinks.

💬 Can these two navigate their growing feelings while juggling the pressure of careers and superstition? Or will getting lucky turn out to be the most complicated game they’ve ever played?

📚 Why You’ll Love It:
• A sports rom-com with sizzling chemistry and heartfelt moments.
• Perfect for fans of hockey romance and tattoo-loving heroines.
• Laugh-out-loud humor meets swoon-worthy spice.

📖 #ShootYourShot #LexiLaFleurBrown #HockeyRomance #RomComReads

#SportsRomance #LuckyInLove #TattooArtistRomance #BookishHumor #SteamyReads #BookTokRecs #HarlequinTradePublishing

I have been following Lexi LaFleur Brown and her reviews/social media for the last couple of years so was really excited when she announced her book deal!

Lucy and JJ’s story is equal parts spicy and sweet and i appreciated that it followed ‘the formula’ of a hockey romance without being trite or saccharine. Lucy is both badass and tender, Jaylen is a great MMC and i really really loved all of the actual hockey content and great spice level.

Without spoilers I loved that it also showed that sometimes tidying up areas of your life that have caused you grief and trauma aren’t solved by a grand reconciliation but a permission for your life to move on without them.

I also loved the Easter egg/callback to the line in Miracle about keeping the puck if you score on a goalie (at least I think it was intentional).

I’m so glad I got to read this in advance and will happily re-read when my copy comes since I pre-ordered it as soon as we could.

3.5 rounded up!

I’ve been following Lexi on TikTok for a while and just love her content so much! I was so excited to find her book on NetGalley and have access to an e-arc.

As an a hockey player herself and an NHL wag, I think Lexi did a great job writing all of the hockey aspects. Overall, it was a fun and cute read. I read it in 2 sittings and kept itching to pick it back up. Both Jaylen and Lucy were lovable characters and the mental health and LGBTQIA+ representation were well done. I do wish we could have gotten a little more background information on both characters before their meet cute. I would have love to read more dialogue between them, as I found myself skimming over details to get to the dialogue. Regardless, I think this was a great debut novel and I cannot wait to read Lexi’s next work.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing and Canary Street press for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you know this author from social media, you will 100% be able to hear her voice in your head as you're reading this - her tone and vibe totally comes through!

I want to start by saying I got this book as an arc from NetGalley.

I tend to be a reader like goes along for the vibes and good times but still needs a well written book. Shoot your shot is exactly that.

I loved the meet cute between Jaylen and Lucy, I found it cute and very 2000s rom com how they ran into each other after the night they met. I also loved Lucy’s no bullshit bi energy and her incredible wittiness along side Jaylen’s soft and caring personality when talking about a large man in a violent professional sport. The character development you see in both MC throughout the book is realistic and relatable. This book has queer representation, POC representation and mental health representation. All of which I love to see!

Unfortunately I do have a few little hiccups. First I enjoy the real insite the author bring to professional hockey but even as a fan myself there were a few times she used abbreviations or actions I would have like an explanation for what they were in the book. Also the spicy scenes were “fine”. They were mild spice but left me wanting the more in depth emotional and physical details to make them truly special. Lastly this may be a niche complaint and as the book ages won’t be an issue but because it was repeated as a major plot point so I have to bring up the Seattle Farris wheel. I am a western Washington local not much older than Lucy is in the book. Therefore when she kept saying the remembered riding it when she was 7 I would wince a little because I know it wasn’t built until 2012. The math just didn’t add up correctly for when the book is being published.


Overall I really enjoyed this book. I have followed the author on tik tok and instagram for a while and was thoroughly excited and impressed with her book. I’m hoping she keeps writing and does a book next on Maya or Cooper. I’d love to see a MM book of Cooper with one of the rookies!! 😘

This book was really cute and better than most of the hockey romances I've read lately. I really enjoyed the character development of both main characters, and each of their growth storylines. I only wish we had seen more from the cat.