Review ~ Between a Jock and a Hard Place by Mona Ingram

ebook downloaded for free from Amazon.

Release Date: April 14th 2013

Description:
Even though she's surrounded by hockey-crazed family and friends, Claire doesn’t follow the Vancouver Canucks. Her brother has played hockey all of his life and has a promising career in the minors, but that’s as far as her interest goes. So when she meets a large, handsome man with a broken nose she doesn’t recognize him as a key player for the Canucks.
Jack is intrigued with the notion of getting to know a woman who doesn’t know who he is; someone who isn’t attracted to him because of his fame.
When Claire’s brother Cam is injured in a hockey game, she offers to blog anonymously for a local newspaper about the hot-button topic violence in hockey, unaware that Jack will be presenting the opposing view.
Meanwhile, the attraction grows between Claire and Jack, but can they survive the inevitable clash as they discover each other’s true identity?
Between a Jock and a Hard Place is a novella-length Sweet Romance, at 26,700 words.

My Opinion

This was an okay read, but I didn't connect with it as much as I thought I would. It started off good, with an interesting set up of the false identity and secrets, however it soon became repetitive and I didn't feel there was much growth in the relationship. There were a few flirty lines here and there, but I didn't feel a connection between the characters so my attention wasn't held. By the end I wasn't bothered if they stayed together really. Similarly, towards the end things got choppy and felt rushed. It felt like the author was trying to keep under a certain word count rather than use as many as necessary to tell the story. I think things could have been delved into a bit more and fleshed out so there's more personality and chemistry because insta-love needs chemistry to work.

Overall I can only say this was okay, but at least it was free. It's a predictable, easy read that's not at all taxing, but I've read better novellas.

2