Why You'll Love This
An NHL player who hands out NDAs before first dates finally meets someone he'd rather lose than cage — and that tension alone carries the whole book.
- Great if you want: a romance where emotional damage shapes the love story meaningfully
- The experience: warm but tender-hearted — lighter pacing with unexpectedly raw moments
- The writing: Hunting balances banter and vulnerability without letting either undercut the other
- Skip if: you haven't read the series — context from earlier books matters here
About This Book
Fame, secrets, and emotional walls collide in this sixth installment of Helena Hunting's beloved Pucked series. NHL player Alex has spent years keeping relationships at arm's length—guarded, controlled, buried under NDAs—until Charlene disrupts everything he thought he wanted. She's someone he refuses to cage, even when holding on feels urgent. What unfolds between them isn't a simple opposites-attract story; it's something rawer, built on the slow unraveling of two people who are more fractured than they first appear. The emotional stakes here are quietly enormous, centering on vulnerability, trust, and what it costs to let someone see the parts of you that are hardest to love.
Hunting writes with the same signature blend of warmth and wit that defines the Pucked series, but this entry carries noticeably more emotional weight than its predecessors. The pacing is generous without dragging, and the character work goes deeper than the swoony surface might suggest. Readers who've followed the series will feel the satisfying payoff of revisiting this world through a more tender, introspective lens—while newcomers will find enough heart here to make the earlier books feel like a welcome next step.
