Lia Riley

Breezy Angel is a children's librarian and huge fan of hockey in general and Jed West, captain of the Hellions, in particular. Jed ends up agreeing to fill in at a library event in his coach's place and saves Breezy from being publicly humiliated by a wardrobe malfunction. The two of them start seeing more of each other and soon become a couple, but they're both hiding things. In an effort not to be creepy, Breezy hides all of her Jed West memorabilia and allows him to think she's the only one in her family not wildly into hockey. He, meanwhile, has increasing concerns about his health and the potential impact on his hockey career.

The early humorous moments had me cringing in secondhand embarrassment more often than I preferred, but the characters were generally very likeable and Jed and Breezy's relationship had some nice cute moments. Both of them struggled with family issues, particularly feeling like they were living in a sibling's shadow. I loved that he took her ice skating so that she could try it without her mom's expectations putting pressure on her. Her efforts to find the perfect book for him were nice too, although they didn't inspire quite the same warm fuzzies as the ice skating scene.

This was working fairly well for me until the end. Breezy's plan to set the record straight and apologize to Jed could, and probably should, have backfired - honestly, the way she'd arranged things put him in a pretty awkward position. I was also really annoyed by Breezy's secret goal and the way things worked out there - she wanted to open a children's bookstore, which the author, via Jed, seemed to view as a natural thing for a children's librarian. Never mind that being a children's librarian doesn't necessarily prepare you for owning your own business, or that Breezy would have to take sales and profits into account in addition to the joy of matching kids up with the perfect books.

So, this had some issues. But like I said, the characters were really likeable, and that might be enough to make me give this series another shot.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (more)