⭐⭐⭐💫
Not only did I want to pick up at least one hockey romance during the Hockey Champions Readathon, but I decided for my July TBR to continue reading in Sarina Bowen's Brooklyn Bruisers series. Next up was book three, Pipe Dreams. I applied this to the prompt for the Coach Jared Bednar (stays calm under pressure) for the readathon. I also was able to apply this to the prompts travel romance for Summer of Swoon.
After Nate's assistant for his hockey operations ends up with a concussion, he calls back Lauren, his C-suite assistant, to cover while she heals. Lauren used to be the GM's assistant for the Brooklyn Bruisers, but has taken the chance to work for Nate's corporation and run with it. Part of the reason why she's run to Manhattan, was her horrible break up with the team's goalie Mike Beacon. Mike and Lauren were friends for almost 8 years, but when he found his wife cheating on him with her tennis instructor, he started to file for divorce. He takes the chance to make his move on Lauren and they spend over a year together happy. When his soon to be ex-wife finds out she has cancer, Mike moves back in to help take care of her and his daughter. When he does this, he ends his relationship with Lauren and doesn't explain to her why. It's been about a year since Mike's wife has passed and when Lauren ends up travelling with the team during their playoff run, he takes the chance to reconnect.
So, I should preface this review with the fact that I'm not usually a fan of 2nd chance romances, especially one where there's been a break-up. Here, there was a lot of damage done to Lauren. Mike didn't open up to her about anything that was happening (even though he did when they were friends) and then after telling her over the phone that it's over, he then ghosted her. Literally the night before he does this they are looking at apartments to move in when the team moves to Brooklyn. My biggest issue with this book is that there isn't really any resolutions or delving into each of their baggage. Specifically when it comes to what Lauren went through. It took her 2 years to really start to get over Mike and now that she's finally starting to move forward he's back. I just wanted there to be a deep discussion of what happened and for Mike to realize that Lauren wasn't "sad" but deeply hurt.
I feel like there wasn't any real groveling on top of that. The big conflict was more that Lauren wants kids. She is planning on getting artificially inseminated and is on fertility medicine. Mike goes all caveman on her and offers to be the baby daddy (in his mind he wants to marry her). I did not like this and was disappointed quite a few times when she just slept with him. Honestly, it comes down to I don't trust the HEA. There was no emotional work done to actually deal with the break-up and Lauren's subsequent trust issues so they both could move on. When in Mike's POV a couple times he talked about moving or pushing past her sadness and it really started to rub me the wrong way.
Outside of my issues, this was at least well written and it didn't turn me off on the series. I know that I'm very particular about second chance romances like this, but I just didn't feel like the emotional work was done for them to healthily come back together. I will continue to read Sarina Bowen and this series and I'm intrigued to see what happens next!
Have you read Pipe Dreams?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Pipe Dreams, Sarina Bowen, 3.5 stars, 1 day, eBook, 336 pages, published in 2017, traditionally published
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