Rookie Move by Sarina Bowen Series: Brooklyn Bruisers #1
Series Rating:
Published by Berkley on September 6th 2016
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports
Pages: 336
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Apple Books
The first novel in a sexy new series featuring the hockey players of the Brooklyn Bruisers and the women who win their hearts—from the USA Today bestselling author of the Ivy Years series.
In high school they were the perfect couple—until the day Georgia left Leo in the cold...
Hockey player Leo Trevi has spent the last six years trying to do two things: get over the girl who broke his heart, and succeed in the NHL. But on the first day he’s called up to the newly franchised Brooklyn Bruisers, Leo gets checked on both sides, first by the team’s coach—who has a long simmering grudge, and then by the Bruisers’ sexy, icy publicist—his former girlfriend Georgia Worthington. Saying goodbye to Leo was one of the hardest things Georgia ever had to do—and saying hello again isn’t much easier. Georgia is determined to keep their relationship strictly professional, but when a press conference microphone catches Leo declaring his feelings for her, things get really personal, really fast....
I could seriously read anything Sarina Bowen puts out. There have been some of her books that I’ve liked more than others, of course, but there hasn’t been a single one that I outright didn’t like.
Rookie Move does not change that streak. It’s a second chance romance, high school sweethearts unexpectedly reunited. If you think you know this story, however, you don’t. In high school, Leo and Georgia were as in love as any two high schoolers can be. Out of the blue, Georgia broke up with Leo just before they left for college, and neither of them has gotten over it. She thought she was doing what he wanted, he was devastated. Standard for high school age people. One decent conversation would have helped, but neither of them would initiate that conversation. Hell, some adults can’t manage to initiate that conversation.
Leo’s dream is finally coming true. He’s been called up by the Brooklyn Bruisers, the newest team in the NHL. The Bruisers were recently bought by a young internet billionaire and rebranded from a Long Island team to the Brooklyn Bruisers and everyone involved has a lot to prove. The billionaire is facing criticism that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. The general sports world thinks that the area already has too many hockey teams and has no interest in supporting another one. The team has finally hired a new coach, and it happens to be Georgia’s father. Who hates Leo. So Leo has to prove himself to the coaching staff and not get sent back down to the minors. Georgia is currently working as the interim head of publicity for the team and is hoping Nate, the billionaire owner, sort of forgets that and makes her to official head. So all of them need everything to go perfectly.
Obviously, it doesn’t. Georgia’s first press conference, the one where the team will introduce the new coach and the new player, is a disaster. Leo says something on a hot mic that he shouldn’t, it’s picked up by the press, and everyone’s thrown into a spotlight they weren’t expecting, Leo and Georgia most of all.
I loved everything about this book. Sarina Bowen’s writing is fantastic, as always. She has a way of writing that’s so refreshingly real. Her characters are real people, not caricatures. They react to situations the way you or I would react to them, not the way Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane would react. (No disrespect to Erica Kane. I watched All My Children for at least a decade, including when it did that weird online season. But no one on that show, or any of the other dozen or so soap operas I loved, ever reacted to any situation the way an actual human would react).
Leo and Georgia are no different. Leo has never gotten over Georgia breaking his heart. He never understood why she did it, and she turned her back on him completely and refused to explain. They weren’t expecting to run into each other again, but here they are. Both of them want to want to be together, but there’s a lot of baggage in the middle, and Georgia especially isn’t sure they’ll make it. I don’t think it’s spoilery to say that they will make it, but the journey is one that I absolutely loved reading.
I haven’t read all of Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years series, but I didn’t have any trouble with this one; it could definitely be read as a standalone. And I highly recommend that you do so.
About Sarina Bowen
Sarina Bowen is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. She lives in Vermont’s Green Mountains with her family, six chickens and too much ski gear and hockey equipment.
