Review: HFN story (part of 3) that works well on its own
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
The PremiseSavannah Morrison is the new athletic trainer for the Moncton Ice Cats, a professional hockey team in the wilds of New Brunswick.  She’s doing everything to establish herself in a male-dominated field, and has to deal with being the only straight female under sixty, so she gets hit on working for the Ice Cats. Alot.  Matter of fact, the first person to hit on her is Garrick LeBlanc, a twelve year veteran of the EHL.  He isn’t ready to retire but he is depending on Savannah to keep him going until he figures out what he wants to do when he’s done playing hockey.  Their relationship starts off on the wrong foot, but when the team is put up for sale, Garrick and Savannah have to work together to save their jobs and their team. Somewhere along the way, they discover Garrick isn't just a hockey player, Savannah isn't only passionate about her work, and just maybe they've got more in common than they thought.My ThoughtsFreebie on amazon - and I was completely surprised at the writing.  It’s good.  Freebies are a crap shoot, but I’m glad to say that I was pleasantly surprised with Ms. Wayland’s romantic suspense set in a little Canadian hockey town.  The plot surrounding the romance is well developed and there’s enough action that takes place that keeps your attention and kept me flipping to the next page to see what will happen next.  There is fair amount of really hot, kinky sex (though it is all M/F), but as a reader, I got to know Savannah and Garrick, and there weren’t big moments where their characters didn’t make sense or did things to falsely create some conflict.  Savannah has legitimate reasons for being careful in launching a relationship with Garrick.  Garrick is an open, easygoing hero who is willing to let Savannah make her moves, his alpha side really coming out in the bedroom, but not overwhelming the rest of the characters.  Basically, he’s a very likeable character.The suspense part of the story has its flaws - Garrick turned investigator wasn’t the strongest and the resolution wrapped up a long time criminal conspiracy pretty easily, but I was willing to suspend disbelief enough to go with it.This story is the first part of a three book series, but this book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger and there is a resolution to the romance that gives the reader a Happy For Now feeling.I would warn those who would want to continue that the story shifts from M/F to M/M and eventally MMF and if that’s not your thing, you could end the series on this book and be satisfied IMO, which I really appreciated....though I'm totally going to read the rest of the series, so well done Ms. Wayland - you pulled me in.The Bottom LineA surprisingly well developed and well written hockey romantic suspense book.  Check it out.