Pucked Off by Helena Hunting

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Title: Pucked Off
Author: Helena Hunting
Series: Pucked #5
Published by: Audible Studios
Release Date: February 21, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Rose Dioro, Jacob Morgan
Length: 9 hours and 36 minutes
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Sports Romance
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »Physical Abuse (female to male), Mental Abuse (female to male) « Hide Spoiler
Source: Audible
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 #LetsReadIndie Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Adult Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

Listening time 9 hours 36 minutes

***A Standalone novel in The Pucked Series***

I’m NHL defenseman Lance Romero, AKA Lance “Romance."

I’m notorious for parties and excess. I have the most penalty minutes in the league. I get into the most fights. I take the most hits. I’m a player on and off the ice. I’m the one women with no inhibitions want.

Not because I like the notoriety, but because I don’t know how to be any other way.

I have secrets. Ones I shared with the wrong person, and she used them against me. Sometimes she still does. I should cut ties. But she makes it difficult, because she’s the kind of bad I deserve.

At least that’s what I believed until someone from my past gets caught up in my present. She’s all the good things in this world. She lights up my dark.

I shouldn’t want her.

But I do.

I should leave her alone.

But I won’t.

My Review:

4.5 stars — Oh wow, another audiobook win!  I’m telling you, there is nothing like listening to a mild Scottish accent.  Now, I will caveat that by saying I have no idea how authentic it was — I know Mr. Morgan does not normally have an accent.  But for someone with no ear for authenticity, it was swoony.  I absolutely ADORED the way Jacob Morgan performed Lance…he made all of the emotions come alive, and he made my heart pitter-patter.  I was worried about Rose Dioro at first, b/c she was so…delicate sounding.  But she totally grew on me and made Poppy come alive.  I also loved the way she would voice other characters, and how she would voice Lance as well.  Seriously, this is another case where I believe the narrators took a great book and made it even better.  I didn’t want to stop listening, and honestly sat in my chair listening to “just one more chapter” way too much when I should have been doing other things.  That’s what I call a success.  Now on to the actual book!

I was a bit concerned with the way the book started with Lance.  We get a fairly explicit scene of him with another woman (women) at the very start, and normally that would be a complete turnoff for me.  But in the end I think it helped me to truly understand the fucked up nature of his toxic relationship with Tash.  It gave us immediate insight into how he saw himself, how he felt about sex, and all of the other emotions roiling around in him.  And wow…my heart broke for him.  Truly it did.  I can’t even imagine what he went through in his childhood, and then to have Tash come along and take advantage of that.  I completely understood why his damage made him feel that he deserved that kind of treatment, even as I cried for him.  There was so much to his character, and I fell in love with him immediately.  Which is not to say that I didn’t want to smack him for some of his choices, but I also understood why he made some of those choices.  And he was seriously adorable — I loved his addiction to sweets, it only added to his boyish charm.  I felt like we got to see him grow throughout the book, and truly accept the things he couldn’t change, but also strive to heal what he could.

Poppy was freaking adorable as well.  I was initially annoyed with her for keeping their past a secret, but in the end I was okay with how that all played out.  It made sense for them.  I loved how patient and kind she was, but that she also wasn’t willing to put up with all of Lance’s crap.  I loved that while she was a quieter, shyer character, that didn’t mean she wasn’t strong.  She stayed true to who she was, even if it made her stand out.  I loved how dedicated she was to the people in her life, and to her job.

And the two of them together made my heart explode.  They had so much chemistry in the steamy sense, but I also truly felt their connection on the emotional level.  They both made me giddy with how much they liked each other, and I was rooting for them not to get caught up in drama.  I appreciated that when the conflict came, I was okay with both of their reactions.  I hurt for them both, but I thought they both reacted as well as they could.  It made the resolution so sweet.

So yeah, total success for me.  I’ve only read one other in this series, Pucked, and I wasn’t a big fan of Violet in that one (though I LOVED Alex).  So I was leery of more books in this series, b/c the humour in that one was a bit overdone.  I can honestly say that this book had a completely different feel, though it still worked well within the series.  So if you were like me and got tired of the beaver jokes, I highly recommend giving this one a shot.  And I highly recommend opting for the audio, b/c both narrators knocked it out of the park.