| Title | : | Breakaway (Portland Storm, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 322 |
| Publication | : | First published December 10, 2013 |
Still in a downward spiral after a life-altering event in college, Dana Campbell is desperate to try anything to break away from the horror of that fateful night—even enlisting the help of the only man she trusts completely.
No matter how irresistible she is or how tempting the offer, Eric might not be able to cross that line—especially with the team’s chance at the playoffs on the line. Now, Eric has to take one last shot, but will he choose Dana’s Breakaway chance at happiness or the move that could secure his career?
Breakaway (Portland Storm, #1) Reviews
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FREE on Amazon US today (2/4/2015)
BLURB:
She’s reaching for a breakaway pass.
Dana Campbell has spent the past seven years in self-imposed isolation for a crime she didn’t commit. The danger is well in the past, but her panic attacks make it impossible to have a normal, healthy relationship with a man. Even her counselor has given up on her. She has to find someone she trusts to help her fight through the panic, or her seven-year ordeal will become a lifetime sentence. There’s only one man she feels safe enough to ask.
He got caught with his head down.
As the captain of the NHL’s once elite but now fading Portland Storm, Eric Zellinger knows a thing or two about keeping his focus on the job. Questions are flying about his ability to lead the team back to the playoffs. If they don’t make it, he might be shipped out of town. It’s the worst time possible for his best friend’s kid sister to divide his focus. How can he give her what she needs without jeopardizing both the Storm’s playoff hopes and his future with the team?
It’s her only chance, but it’s his last shot.
http://www.amazon.com/Breakaway-Portl... -
An excellent story, and you can't beat free as a price. I fell in love with the protagonist, Dana, almost instantly and really wanted her to succeed. And Eric was almost as engaging. They were a perfect couple almost from the start, the only thing keeping them apart, really, was Dana's trauma from years ago.
I don't know anything about rape survival, and Dana's rape in the past was particularly brutal (no, this is not a spoiler, we learn of this pretty much from page one). I have no way to know how she should be coping and no way to judge where she was in overcoming the trauma that makes it difficult for her to be around men—even family. Not that it felt unrealistic. Indeed, it felt terribly realistic, even dreadfully so. So her victory, slow, but steady, over her panic attacks felt earned, even as I was impatient for her to overcome.
One aspect of this novel that truly shone, though, were the non-Eric men in the book. There were some truly strong secondary characters who helped Dana as much in their own way as Eric did. Gayle depicted these men both sympathetically and realistically and their honest desire to help and protect show exactly how civilization is built—by the strong being put in service to the weak and with kindness overcoming the evil effects of the selfish.
So this was a very strong story, extremely well-told (going by how it felt real and conveyed the inner landscape of its protagonists even though I have no way to relate personally). But there were some aspects that grated, even so. First, I'm not really a fan of the trade-off narrative that switches perspective with a hard break each time. I don't mind switching perspectives (in romance), but hanging a hat on it with hard section breaks mid-chapter was just jarring. Worse, though, this one made some effort to keep the breaks even, trading off on a regular pattern and at what felt like extremely regular intervals. If you're going to switch PoV, I much prefer going with where the more interesting story lies rather than switching on a timer.
Second, the pacing was a bit awkward. Dana only has six weeks for her project, so skipping ten days at a stretch with kind of lame gloss felt a bit off. If you're going to skip that much with no progress or regression, you might as well say she only has five weeks and cut the jump. Even though the narrative doesn't pause, you can't help inserting a long pause as the reader and that's jarring. It wasn't the only time you got odd jumps, either.
But the real pain was the last quarter of the book or so when both Dana and Eric failed, utterly, to simply communicate. You sometimes have books where the "I love yous" come too fast. In this one, they came way, way, way, way, uh, way, too slow (I skipped some "way"s for brevity). It felt like the last couple chapters of the book were simple filler for the sake of drama. Given how much I loved both Dana and Eric, their pain as each insisted to themselves that the other couldn't possibly love them as much as they had fallen in love was painful.
So yeah, a firm four stars until that point, but it dropped to a 3.5 with downward momentum leading to rounding down. I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the series, though.
A note about Steamy: There's only one explicit sex scene, but the whole novel is about Dana learning to accept masculine touch without panicking. That makes the entire novel a long, slow burn and some of it is intimate enough to qualify on its own. That still leaves it on the lower-middle range, though. -
This was a really sweet story - almost nonexistent steam, which I usually can't abide by - but it worked for me in this one.
I really liked Dana and Eric and I'll read just about any sports romance that involves hockey.
Save this one for when you are in the mood for a more tame, sweet romance with a lot of depth. -
4.5 torturously sweet stars
It's free on most eReader retailers! Amazon US ->
http://amzn.to/1M3RF3p
Heard this one before? Girl has insecurity issues and asks trusted hot male friend to help her out and they fall in love in the process.
You’ve probably read it or seen it before but this is not that story. This is a torturously sweet story about the journey of a woman who was left emotionally scared and broken, but with the patient and loving help of her brother’s best friend, is put back together and given a chance at a happy and fulfilling life.My heart fluttered and my skin tingled anytime I was near him. How I viewed him had changed. He wasn’t just Brenden’s best friend anymore, not in my head. Not in my heart.
It’s the journey of a man who thought would never be able to be with the woman he’s loved since before he was allowed to and is given a chance to not just help her but have her if only he can keep his life in check in order to not trigger her panic attacks and maintain the rest of his life in balance.I could wait. I’d already waited seven years. My need had to come second to hers.
This story is surrounded by exciting hockey games and is told from both points of view, the cadence and rhythm is such that it will pull you right in and you’ll be moved along with them.
This is the first book in the Portland Storm series. Told from both points of view. Can be read as a standalone. Cheating? . Happy Ending?
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http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H8T2ALS/?...
Imagine being handled with tender care by a man whose job is brutally physical.
Warm, comforting, sexy, sweet. Like a hot cocoa by the fire. The only thing that bothered me was
I liked Eric. The way he spoke, his thoughts, his patience. God, this man is a saint! His balls musta been blue as ice. Lol. But, it was sweet and I won't call her a cocktease cuz that would be insensitive to her situation.
I'm in. Reading the whole series. Stanley Cup man!
brenden Feb 2014
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IIUBPHG/?...
2.5 novella, anthology
book 3 Liam June 2014
Catherine Gayle on Amazon
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Warning Trigger:
Eric and Dana grew up around each other. He's her brother, Brenden's- aka:"Soupy"- best friend.
At first, Dana was Soupy's kid sister, three years younger than him. They got along great, roughed housed, played hockey together and all was well. Until he starts to see her in a different light however, she is still to young for him. He goes off to college and in his last year there, he decides he wants to make a play for her...until life rocks their world. Now, nothing will ever be the same again- for any of them.
Dana decided to go to a different college from her brother and Eric. At this point, she doesn't see Eric in a romantic light. She ends up playing on the women's hockey team, when her life takes a drastic altering turn- leaving her feeling in an isolated prison for the next 7 years of her life. She knows something needs to give - because nothing else is working. She decides to leave her bubble life and seek out Eric, in hopes that he is her last saving grace.
Can Eric be all she needs him to be? Will he take it too far, push her over the edge that she may never come back from? Can she handle what she's asking Eric to do for her?
Its hard, confusing, and emotions are on the line. Nothing will be easy when these two decide to blur the lines of friendship in order to save what's left of the woman Dana has become.
What I liked:
1. Team bonding scenes
2. Touching scenes
3. Eric's feelings for Dana
4. Web, his wife, Laura, and their daughter, Katie
5. Sara
6. Dana traveling with the team
7. Jim Sutter
8. Bab's
9. I LOVED Cam and wish I had seen way more of him
10. The team and their humor
11. Action on the ice
12. I appreciated that this book dealt with mature adults and a very real topic, and how they went about trying to help Dana over come the events she was forced into. Nothing was over the top and beyond ridiculous.
13. No: cheating, drugs, puck bunnies, unnecessary drinking-parties or other stupid drama to be ridiculous.
My only complaint- I wish there had been more to the ending. I liked how it ended, but I needed a touch more. I will say that I hope that I get that little bit of closure in
Double Major, as I hear it has epilogues for books 1-4. Fingers crossed. -
I really enjoyed this story about a woman trying to recover from a brutal rape that took place 7 years ago. Thankfully the author didn't ignore the counselling aspect as some writers do. The heroine had done all that and this was her last hope. She asks her brother's BFF to try to get her used to a man touching her. The hero had loved her for years from afar. He was super sweet and caring and just all in for her. She was not as interesting a character but I think the author put more effort into writing the hero which is fine with me as I like to read best from the hero's POV. He was pretty well developed. There was a lot more going on with him than just the romance. He had a lot to deal with on the work/hockey front too.
There were just a couple of things which held it back from being a 5 star read for me. First the heroine's odd insistence that the hero only loved her as his BFF's little sister and didn't really want to touch her, that she didn't truly turn him on. There was just no rationale reason for her to think this for very long based on the hero's words and actions. It just wasn't there. Second I know it was about hockey and I enjoy hockey but there was just too much intricate description of moving the puck around. I don't need a play by play in a romance novel. Third and this one is mostly just personal preference, I would have preferred it if the entire team had not known what was going on. It seemed first an invasion of privacy which the heroine would not have appreciated and second a missed opportunity for some conflict and angst.
On the whole I greatly enjoyed it and am planning to look up the rest of the series. -
4,5 decisamente sorpresa da questa lettura su cui non avevo posto molte aspettative.
L'evoluzione del rapporto tra Eric e Dana è stata ponderata, senza accelerazioni, in piena linea con la storia. -
2.5 stars
I could get my Canadian citizenship revoked for saying this, but
Breakaway, by
Catherine Gayle, had too much hockey in it. For those who don’t know the sport or aren’t interested in it, I can’t imagine they’d even finish the book.
I loved the premise of the story, that Dana went to the only man she trusted to learn how to be intimate again after being raped. I don’t think it was executed well though. Nor did I think the subject of the rape was handled particularly gently. Dana was gang raped, and the notion is flung at the reader in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way. Dana is so damaged that she can’t handle being touched by a man even in a non-intimate way. She’s stopped all contact with the opposite sex, even hugging her brother and father. And the book takes place seven years after the rape. Dana’s still plagued with debilitating panic attacks. I think Gayle did a tremendous job showing the reader how damaged Dana was. Consequently, conveying her healing was an uphill battle that ultimately happened in a very all-at-once sort of way, and I didn’t really buy it.
I liked Eric. He’s the captain of a hockey team and is torn between his duties to the team, his loyalty to his best friend—who happens to be Dana’s older brother—and his feelings for Dana. He was easy enough to understand and relate to, and I thought Gayle did a good job helping the reader see how much he wanted Dana as well as how important he felt doing the right thing for Dana was.
I liked Dana well enough. In some ways she seemed incredibly selfish in that she put her own needs ahead of Eric’s. I kept wondering why she never asked him about his pained expressions and always assumed she knew the reasons. That actually kind of drove me nuts to be honest.
For this book to have been more successful for me, the intimate relationship between Eric and Dana would have had to move ahead at a steadier pace, with fewer setbacks. Or the author could have toned down the hockey talk and put in more couple talks. The book was just okay. -
13/15 - What a heart-warming book and what a great hero! ♥
Rezension:
http://buecher.ueber-alles.net/?p=19955 -
4.5
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this one… this one really hurts you guys… I wanted to love it sooo badly… but I ended up deciding to DNF it at 53% which really was a surprise… looking back at it now, I should have abandoned the story even sooner, but that’s just proof of how much I wanted to like it… I am also giving it 2 stars… I know, it may seem harsh, but I had a lot of issues with it… I’m not gonna talk specific spoilers, the things I will discuss we get to learn in the first like 10-15% so take that as you will…
on paper, this book sounds like it will be perfect for me… we have a hockey player (my personal favourite athlete to read about) and a heroine who fights to reclaim her life after a traumatic event… I should be singing praises so loud about this book, but unfortunately, the execution of that premise was very lacking… so let me try to explain myself and my issues with this story… *takes a deep breath*
- Dana: she was brutally raped seven years ago, when she was still in college and even after all this time, she can’t stand being touched by men, even her own family members… I definitely appreciate that it’s mentioned that she worked with a therapist, and specificaly sex therapist, to help her heal after that trauma, but she still struggles… she refuses to work with a sex surrogate to help deal with her intimacy issues because she has a better plan… ask Eric, a friend of her brother, to help her deal with all of that, cause she trusts him… and I could (somehow) understand it if she would come to him with a plan, like actual plan, maybe prepared with the help of professionals, to achieve her goal… but nooooo… she just totally surprises him out of the blue and basically gives him no chance to refuse (because how can he refuse such a cry for help) obviously, I can’t really speak to how accurate it is how she deals with her trauma, but… I just can’t understand why she didn’t include more professional help during this last part… even if you don’t want to use the help of sex surrogate, maybe prepare an actual plan of how to approach this very delicate and problematic topic and how to make progress, instead of deciding to wing it because you “just know” how to do it and you will force yourself to endure multiple panic attacks to move forward… *sighs*
- Eric: I felt really sorry for him… he gets blindsided by a woman who he has feelings for (which just makes this whole situation even more complicated) so how can he refuse to help her? she asks for it in the worst possible timing, when he already struggles with his duties as team captain and getting his team to the playoffs… and even though he tries his best, something’s gotta give...
- the writing style: I have so many issues with the choices the author made with this story… I mean, the writing style in general wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was ok enough not to make me abandon the book… nope, it was the way she moved forward the story… Dana arrives to ask for help in the worst time possible… and she really should have known better, especially since she’s not on any sort of deadline why it has to happen right at that very moment… and I get that we need it to add drama to the story with the interactions between Dana and other players, but it makes zero sense… the same thing goes with her complete lack of plan on how to actually handle this problem… which for me seems like it would make things worse and not better… I feel like this very serious issue was handled haphazardly and I just couldn’t read more than half of it…
it’s been about six weeks since I attempted to read this book and to this day it makes me angry when I start to think more about how disappointed it was for me… I don’t really understand all of the glowing reviews of this story… and don’t get me wrong, I know I can be a picky bitch but this one just really didn’t work for me… I don’t think I will pick up anything else by this author, unless it will come highly recommended by a very trusted source
XOXO
A -
Things I liked:
Catherine Gayle has clearly watched a game. I'm not sure how many games she's watched, because while some details were spot on, others not so much (see things I couldn't get behind). However! The details that were spot on were the ones that were most fleshed out and the ones she dwelt on the longest, so that works out. Probably. Anyway, the in game descriptions were well done and things you could actually say about hockey plays.
She also wrote the team pretty well. The interactions between the players were well done, a couple of the background characters were well fleshed out. (I'm assuming because they'll have books later in the series.) The wives were fun to read about, though I wish you'd gotten to see more interaction there.
Meh:
I can't tell if this is a meh or a thing I couldn't get behind, but the book is told from first person point of view. And not just one character. POV switches back and forth between the two main characters, and are separated by the character's name, to assist you in keeping things straight. While I appreciate the assist, I kinda hate first person POV, honestly. I pushed past it to get through the book, but it remains not my favorite.
Things I couldn't get behind:
First of all, the description on the back of the book: Dana Campbell has spent the past seven years in self-imposed isolation for a crime she didn’t commit. does absolutely NOTHING to warn you about the gang rape described inside. "A crime she didn't commit" because yes there was a crime but it was inflicted upon her, not just something she happened to witness and didn't tell anyone about. Call me crazy, but things that could potentially trigger panic attacks in your reader should probably be warned for.
For the hockey things she got right, she also got things wrong. Simple things, like spelling Henrik Lundqvist's name wrong, and slightly more complicated things, like St. Louis and San Jose battling for the same first seed spot for home ice advantage in the playoffs. She also seems to have a funny concept of "the bubble" in the playoff picture. The Portland Storm (made up NHL team for the book) were battling the Dallas Stars (sure), the Edmonton Oilers (seriously don't make me laugh) and a couple of other teams for the final playoff spot, but the Storm did literally nothing but lose the entire book long. They won maybe three games that were described? She tried to hand wave this by saying that the Flames were falling apart more than the Storm were, but even on the bubble (especially in the West) a team needs to win more than three games in the final weeks of the series to even have a prayer. Most certainly to have it come down to the last game that you need to win.
Speaking of the timing of this novel, which took place during the last six weeks of the season, the heroine of this novel knows hockey. She played it herself in college until the horrifying incident when she quit hockey, school, and all human contact. She decides to bring her problems to her brother's best friend from home (who happens to be the captain of the Portland Storm) in the last six weeks of the season. When he's vying for a playoff position. In order for him to help her, he talks to the coach of the team, who allows her to fly with them on the road? And the team pays for a hotel room next to his? So this guy can love her back into feeling normal? Like, pretty sure the off season would have been a better time for all of this. Call me crazy. -
4 1/2 stars. I really enjoyed this book.
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This is the first full length novel in the 'Portland Storm Hockey Series and wow, what a story it turned out to be. My emotions were pulled all over the place. I hope I can do the book and author justice in my review because this is a great read.
Eric “Zee” Zellinger was the Captain of the Portland Storm Hockey Team. He had been and still was in love with Dana Campbell, his best friend's sister. She had also been a hockey player throughout her life but gave it up during college after she was brutally attacked and gang raped after a game on her way to the locker room (kind of.) Dana, her brother and hockey player Brenden 'Soupy' Campbell and Eric grew up together. Eric had been waiting for Dana to grow up so he could hopefully spend his life with her but he kept that to himself. She had been attacked right as Eric was going to make his move. She was so damaged from the rapes that she closed herself off and couldn't stand to be in the same room with a man, let alone be in a relationship. So Eric moved on and bid his time to see what would happen with Dana. He had been dating a gal he met but he wasn't in love with her. She was nothing but second choice until he found her in his bed with his teammate. But that didn't really bother him because his heart wasn't involved with her, just his pride. It was my understanding that he hadn't really dated anyone in two years. It is my opinion that he was not a man-whore and that was a real plus.
Some thoughts on the trauma Dana suffered: Rape is a horrific crime and how does one recover and work her/his way back to having some semblance of a normal life? How does one cope being a young virginal woman who was violated in such a way? I have no answers. She went through seven years of counseling until her therapist finally said she had done all she could for her and Dana had made little progress. Not to make light of any rape, but for a young woman who was a virgin almost seems like a double whammy when it comes to the loss of her/his innocence via a gang rape.
I have read about rapes and watched talk and news shows about the subject but I had never witnessed anyone being affected as badly as Dana had. I felt that some of her fears had built up inside her head over the years, not that it wasn't awful but she seemed to perpetuate her fears and hang ups. It seemed she hung onto them like a lifeline but I'm not sure that is what was happening...maybe just the way it seemed to me. I got the impression that there had been times she wasn't trying to move on, feeling safer in the tiny world she had created for herself.
She couldn't let her dad or brother touch her. No more kisses on the cheek. Any other man besides those two and she was terrified to be in the same room with, even when she knew they were safe. She worked at a women's only club because she wouldn't take the chance to be in the same room with a man who may find her attractive or ask her out. Her panic attacks were so severe there were a few times they thought she may die being unable to breathe.
Dana's Game Plan: Eric was the only man Dana trusted besides her father and brother. She has a deal she wants to strike with Eric, her last chance at any kind of normal. Can he handle the job without both of them ending up with shattered hearts?
I highly recommend this book. It was a super read and frankly I thought the rating on Goodreads would have been higher. -
Ok, y’all. Let’s get real. This book? It blew me away. Knocked my socks off. And a variety of other random, cliche, remarks. It was fantastic.
It’s the classic, falling in love with your brother’s best friend story. And it doesn’t help that Eric has to be one of my top five book boyfriends of all time. He was just amazing. (But I feel like I can’t go farther without spoiling parts of the story!)
I feel like writing a review for this book without gushing just isn’t possible. It’s one of those books that just grabs you, and pulls you in. It’s just that good. And the fact that there’s hockey – lot’s of it – is just the icing on this delicious cake.
Dana’s story had to be tough to write. It broke my heart, and there were a few times I was close to tears and definitely on the edge of my seat. But Dana’s growth in the book was wonderful – there were moments when I felt it went faster than realistic, but still fantastic.
If you’re looking for a great romance? This one is it. If you want a fantastic hero? Definitely it. -
🎁 FREE on Amazon today (1/21/2019)! 🎁
Blurb:`
Portland Storm captain Eric “Zee” Zellinger knows how to get the job done, but leading his once elite team to victory is fast becoming a losing battle. He can’t lose focus now—not with his career on the line. But when his best friend’s little sister makes him an offer he can’t refuse, Eric could lose the drive the team relies on from their captain.
Still in a downward spiral after a life-altering event in college, Dana Campbell is desperate to try anything to break away from the horror of that fateful night—even enlisting the help of the only man she trusts completely.
No matter how irresistible she is or how tempting the offer, Eric might not be able to cross that line—especially with the team’s chance at the playoffs on the line. Now, Eric has to take one last shot, but will he choose Dana’s Breakaway chance at happiness or the move that could secure his career? -
This was a freebie that a friend recommended, and surprise! It was actually good. Dealt with touchy subjects like rape and PTSD. A few steamy scenes. Positive family relationships and friendships. There was hockey lingo I didn't understand, not a big deal. I liked the family feel of the team & staff.
Eric was a bit of a Gary Stu. Dedicated team captain, mad therapist skillz, and master of self restraint. He takes in stray persons and provides sexual healing. For certain strays. So, yeah, gotta be in th right mood.
It was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! -
I loved the premise of the story, that Dana went to the only man she trusted to learn how to be intimate again after being raped. I don’t think it was executed well though. Nor did I think the subject of the rape was handled particularly gently. Dana was gang raped, and the notion is flung at the reader in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way. Dana is so damaged that she can’t handle being touched by a man even in a non-intimate way. She’s stopped all contact with the opposite sex, even hugging her brother and father. And the book takes place seven years after the rape. Dana’s still plagued with debilitating panic attacks. I think Gayle did a tremendous job showing the reader how damaged Dana was. Consequently, conveying her healing was an uphill battle that ultimately happened in a very all-at-once sort of way, and I didn’t really buy it.
I liked Eric. He’s the captain of a hockey team and is torn between his duties to the team, his loyalty to his best friend—who happens to be Dana’s older brother—and his feelings for Dana. He was easy enough to understand and relate to, and I thought Gayle did a good job helping the reader see how much he wanted Dana as well as how important he felt doing the right thing for Dana was.
I liked Dana well enough. In some ways she seemed incredibly selfish in that she put her own needs ahead of Eric’s. I kept wondering why she never asked him about his pained expressions and always assumed she knew the reasons. The fact that neither of these 2 adults would confide their feelings, and when they finally did, Dana didn’t believe him. She was constantly redefining his actions and words with her own thoughts. She never asked him anything directly. The same could be said of Eric. -
Freebie 6/4/17
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Too much hockey talk, lost interest.
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OMG! What a great romance! This was a freebie and the first book I have read from this author.
Gayle has done an exceptional job and I am looking forward to reading more of her work! -
I loved this book! The content and set up for the book is very heavy and incredibly sad but that just makes the ending that much sweeter. Reading about Dana and Eric together was so great and you can’t help but desperately want things to work out ok for them. There’s not a lot of angst in this book, outside of Dana’s panic attacks. Though there’s a lot about the hockey season included, this is essentially a book about healing and trust.
I can’t begin to imagine the pain and suffering that someone goes through when they are a victim of sexual abuse and for once I feel like an author did this experience justice. Too often a heroine in a romance novel is a victim but once they meet their love interest it’s like nothing happened to them in the past. Do I believe that love can heal a lot of wounds? Of course! Do I believe that someone who’s been through a nightmare deserves to have something easy in their life? Of course! But sometimes a little realism means a lot in a story. Dana suffers from panic attacks and anxiety to such an extent that she can’t even hold hands with a guy. She has completely isolated herself; she dropped out of school, stopped playing hockey, works at an all female gym and hasn’t even thought of dating since her attack. It’s a genuine struggle for her to trust in Eric and begin to find herself again. I loved how determined Dana was, even when it seemed like the odds were against her. Gayle doesn’t just magically heal her; it’s a battle from day 1 for Dana to overcome her trauma. I was mildly annoyed with how oblivious Dana is about Eric’s feelings. She knows that Eric loves her but she mistakenly believes it’s the type of love you feel for a sister. I guess with her lack of experience I can maybe understand why she would believe that, but still.
Then there’s Eric…sigh…he was so amazing! I couldn’t ask for a better hero in a romance novel. I’ve always liked the sweeter, nicer guys in books. I never understood the trend of bad boy players with over developed alpha tendencies and a mean streak. That’s just not attractive to me; Eric is much more my speed. He’s a tough guy on the ice and he knows what he wants in life but he’s not afraid to be a normal guy, with normal feelings. He’s so gentle with Dana and so concerned with hurting her or making her anxiety worse. At the same time he trusts Dana when she says she can handle something.
Content Warning: Dana was gang raped in college and suffers from severe PTSD and anxiety
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Favorite Quotes:
Eric was safe. I could trust him. He was the only man in my life who I trusted implicitly, at least of the ones who weren’t family. That’s why I chose him.
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Eric lay down next to me and pulled me close. He settled my head in a spot by his shoulder and wrapped his arms around me. I felt so protected and warm. Loved. -
Surprisingly sweet, given the premises
In terms of style, each chapter is divided in 2 parts, one told by the female lead, and the other by the male lead. It's rather well done, but this might not be the cup of tea of some readers.
The hero almost seemed too good to be true, but with just enough failings to remain humane. However I would have liked it better if he had been a bit more multi-dimensional, either in his past or by growing out more along the story.
The heroine obviously needed to change, mature and really overcome that traumatic experience in her past. I was surprised by the intensity of her symptoms at the beginning, 7 years after the facts, but do not have any idea whether that's realistic or not, so will not pass judgement. The beginning of her transformation was not easy, took time and seemed real, except all of a sudden, everything or almost seemed fine, and that I really had trouble to believe in.
All in all an enjoyable contemporary romance set in the sport industry, with a rather realistic tone, the language from today neither too familiar, nor especially refined.
Very chaste in comparison with usual other romances, which works given the specific context.
Following the reading of this freebie, I purchased and read the following 2 books in the series in one go. -
There are a lot of things wrong with this audiobook.
The story is good. It goes a little too far with the "be careful of the girl who was assaulted" business, but that makes it more realistic than not. But it drew the story out and there was times when I felt guilty for being bored with the way this main character couldn't deal.
The narration is ok if you like your stories read to you. Read with expression, sure. But read nonetheless, because the characters were just as flat as they would have been on a printed page. It's written from dual perspectives and Suzan Lynn Lorraine did them both. That just didn't work for me at all. I wish the author had spent the money to at least have two narrators, one male and one female. It would have gone a long way in saving this book for me. The story was good enough, all things considered. But between a s-l-o-w burn romance and bad narration, I got to about 80% and jumped to the end. Nope, couldn't do it. -
I adored Eric!! Talk about a hot sexy aaand caring lovable guy!
You could practically feel his love for Dana... Everything they went thru was just too hard, too painful, but he never gave up. He was a Rock! I was getting frustrated with her, but it was a tough experience and it definitely wasn't easy...
I liked all the characters (especially Babs) and I could feel a story coming for each one in the series.
So, why not five stars? Well... it was too much hockey info for me. I'm not into sports, but I know nothing whatsoever about hockey, so when page after page she (the author) was describing the plays and stuff., j just skipped that part. It would've been easier for me to tell me that he was struggling to score....or that they were playing bad or something without all the technicalities. But I guess for some it would work :p -
I just couldn't put this book down. I've read it so fast even though I still had other stuff going on that day.
The writing was addicting and so good.
The storyline was solid and what I loved is that there wasn't a case of 'sudden healing just cause she has feelings for him'. I mean at some point it was moving a bit fast with how Dana was handling it all but it was never the case that it wasn't understandable at all.
Even though the book has such a dark back story I was never feeling down or depressed to a point where I didn't wann read on cause it was handled so well.
I loved the characters, Dana and Eric where just too adorable and we didn't have insta love which is a huge plus point for me.
The only minor thing that I didn't like was that Dana and Eric didn't talk that much about their feelings but otherwise I loved this book to death. -
Much closer to a 4.5 star read. This is a wonderful story of trust. We follow the heroine as she works to move past a horrific incident. Her plight is real, detailed, and believable. As is the romance and the leading man. The couple feels right, not forced in any way. This book just works on all levels. The hockey speak was a delight for a fan like me yet shouldn`t be too heavy to turn off those who aren`t fans of the sport.
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There are a lot of things I truly enjoyed about this book, and a lot of things I think were weak and deserved better treatment. They're all tangled together, though, so this is going to be a bumpy
ridereview.
First, the premise. A hockey-playing girl is gang-raped after one of her games, and years later, after nearly every kind of therapy she can reasonably try, she's recommended by her doctors to try a sex therapist who will both counsel her and also sleep with her, in the name of helping her past her trauma.
So...are those really a thing? I'm almost afraid to research and find out. The idea is very, very squicky to me, and I'm on board with the idea that Dana should not see one of these "therapists." Instead, she goes to Eric, one of her childhood friends. Her brother's best friend. (Hey, free trope squeezed in!) And she asks him to fill that role for her.
Eric turns out to be a great guy, one of the best things about this book. After initial, understandable reluctance, and real concern that this isn't the best thing for her even if it's with someone she already knows and can trust (him,) he agrees to her plan. And as far as I can stretch my disbelief to accept the premise at all, I'm okay with that. It seems at the beginning that he doesn't really think she'll be able to "go all the way" with him, so it's clear he's not using her for potential sex down the road and that he honestly cares about her. As things progress between them, he has to push her away sometimes because he's terrified he won't be able to keep himself in check and he'll end up hurting her--which he accidentally does at a few points, though the severity of her reaction varies, and he feels incredibly torn up about it when it does happen.
So I like that. I'm all about thoughtful, caring, respectful heroes.
What I don't like? I have really mixed feelings about the anxiety representation, and they're difficult to unpack properly. Dana experiences trauma-triggered panic attacks, and a lot of her attack symptoms line up with my own experience--which is good and feels authentic. But on the flip side, the incredible severity of her attacks, and how often she has them, is almost unbelievable. If they're that prevalent in her life, or if she's deliberately exposing herself to her triggers and constantly getting that reaction...well, then, her meds aren't working for her and need to be adjusted, or yeah, hero, you're right and she's really not ready for this yet. I mean, her attacks are constant and debilitating, and yes, that does happen to people even if that's not my experience, but I don't think it's at all realistic to show someone suffering this level of mental illness "curing" herself though exposure to her triggers. And that's the heart of the story, Dana retraining her body to accept that touch can be good.
Which is so freaking sweet and sad and heartwarming and I love it, even though I don't think it's done well. But if her anxiety weren't so debilitating, so that her journey out of it is more believable, then would it be serious enough that she needs this "therapy" at all? It's a conundrum.
But here's the other problem I have with this book: it's a hockey romance and it absolutely does not need to be. There's too much hockey. Hockey, in fact, actually interferes with the pacing of the story, because Dana, a hockey player herself, should have known that dropping this in Eric's lap during the run-up to the playoffs was the worst possible timing. (Even I know that, and I'm not a sports person AT ALL.) And there are long chapters of nothing but Eric on the ice during a game with the narrative doing a play-by-play, and that has nothing at all to do with the romance. If the reader is a hockey fan, great, maybe they're getting something out of it, but if they're not (like me) they're skimming past that because it doesn't have anything to do with the plot. Also, even though I know almost nothing about how to run a sports team of any kind, I found it way past my suspension of disbelief that a) Dana would be okay with literally everyone on the team and staff knowing about her sex life (in that she's attempting to be able to have one someday) in order to travel with the team so that she wouldn't be separated from Eric; and b) I can't believe the team management would go along with that, because it screams UNPROFESSIONAL on every possible level.
Dana's fear turning to growing confidence is beautiful. Eric's concern and tenderness are amazing. Of course the two of them are going to fall in love as they go through this strange and intimate experience together, especially since they were halfway there already because of leftover childhood feelings they never got to act on. For that part of the story, I'm 100% on board.
But everything external that should have been a conflict to their relationship, every real-world concern, had to get minimized or dismissed so that the entire focus could be on the huge, whopping, internal conflict of Dana's own trauma. Even her brother showing up and disapproving of the situation (as brother's best friend romances usually have to have them do at some point) doesn't really make a dent in the story, because he can't object too much or it might be a threat to Dana's recovery. And it's just silly how much a struggling NHL hockey team bends over backwards to make this plot line work. -
I enjoyed Breakaway. It is an emotionally-charged story with great characters. This is a great start on this series. It's fast-paced and the writing flows smoothly. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys hockey and sports romances. Happy reading!
