Hockey Romance #Goals

A Favor For A Favor by Helena Hunting

Dear Reader,

Your high school locker poster collection called to say congratulations on the upgrade! Once your brain gets a load of Bishop Winslow modeling his “my underwear is a thing” boxer brief collection in Helena Hunting’s A Favor For A Favor, you’ll forget all about JTT’s Got Milk? ad. Stevie Bowman certainly has – although at 24 she was probably more of a One Direction fan.

Prepare to celebrate Stevie’s worst birthday ever when you start this book, and although neither of you will even get a slice of consolation cake, hang in there. Yes, Stevie’s opening scene in the penthouse hallway is a bit overdramatic, but you know what? I simultaneously locked myself out of my friend’s house and in her backyard, while wearing a bathing suit (because I’d been fishing a worm out of the pool), just as a rain cloud rolled in, AND, after the 80-year-old neighbour finally freed me, Gmail wouldn’t show me my contact list on the neighbour’s iPhone, AND THEN, when I signed in on her desktop Gmail it sent my locked-in-the-house phone a security code because it thought someone was hacking my account, leaving me without the contact information for the friend’s friend who had a key. I had to call a locksmith, whom I had to wait for on the front porch, still in my bathing suit, for half an hour, and pay him $300+ Canadian dollars to let me back in the house. So, I find Stevie’s Murphy’s Law birthday totally believable. Like my locksmith, Bishop arrives on the scene all eye candy-like, but that’s where our outrageous stories divide: my locksmith was a delight, but I never saw him again, whereas Bishop is a troll, and embarks on a quest to become the bane of Stevie’s existence.

It must be love, right? Listen, Dear Reader, I really don’t have much room in my romantic heart for cranky, self-important athletes/billionaires/vampires, but what I did like in that opening scene between our 2 heroes is that Stevie doesn’t take any of Bishop’s incivility. She puts him in his place, fights back against Murphy’s Law, does not cry all over the obnoxious-yet-sexy neighbour, gets herself into her brother’s condo, and instead of falling to pieces in the wake of walking in on her boyfriend birthday-sexing not her, Stevie puts one foot in front of the other and keeps moving forward. She gives herself time to grieve the lost relationship, accepts the fact that on Monday she starts a brand new job co-starring her slimy new ex, and keeps on living her life. And this is all in Chapter One. See where we’re going here?

No, you don’t! That’s what I love about Helena Hunting’s storytelling; I never know where her books are going to take me. She can open with the tropiest trope to ever trope, but I’ve learned to trust it will be anything but the same-old, so I ride that roller coaster with my hands in the air. Stevie is a physical therapist and I was worried that this book might ride the coattails of my all-time favourite H.H. Pucked Off, in which Poppy is an RMT, but my fears were unfounded. And that is the last time I’ll doubt you, H.H.! I’m sorry!

I’m also careful not to eat or drink much while reading H.H. books because inevitably I will end up snort-laughing and I don’t want to ruin my book or Kobo.

Dear Reader, this book is fairly fluffy, but does get my-eyes-are-leaking emotional in a few places that deal with real life in real ways, creating a healthy balance. It’s also host to some H.H. signature sexy times, (and Violet’s unfiltered commentary – thank you, darling!), so maybe keep a glass of ice water handy after all. If you’re not already a hockey fan, you’re about to become one – just a head’s up. Speaking of Violet, if you don’t know Violet, do yourself a favour and get your hands on PUCKED immediately. More on that another time.

Oh, one more thing: A Favor For A Favor is the second book I’ve ever pre-ordered because, Book 1 in the All In series, A Lie For A Lie, really is that damn good.

Love! From The True North