Blindsided by Victoria Denault

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Title: Blindsided
Author: Victoria Denault
Series: Moo U #1
Published by: Heart Eyes Press
Release Date: February 15, 2021
Format: eARC
Pages: 278
Genres: Sports Romance, Contemporary
Source: Heart Eyes Press
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Winter
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon
My rating:

Blurb:

What if Romeo wore hockey skates, and Juliet was raised on a farm next door?

As a life-long Vermonter, there are three beliefs I’ve always held true:
1. Our family farm is everything
2. Hockey is a close second
3. The Todds next door are our sworn enemies

But this season will test everything I stand for.

I have an illicit side job that could cost me my hockey scholarship. And now Maggie Todd knows my secret. She’s waiting for the right moment to use it against me. But every time I face off against her, I learn things I shouldn’t want to know. Like how deeply her competitive streak runs, and how sexy that is. And how easy it is to make her blush… everywhere.

An Adler and a Todd cannot be lovers. Breaking that rule is like pulling a pin on a grenade--everything in my life could blow up. Can we surrender to these feelings… or will our families’ feud make us its next casualty?

My Review:

I received a free copy through Heart Eyes Press in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.

4 4.5 stars — If you’re a reader of my reviews, you know I’m suuuupppper picky about my enemies to lovers trope…  And honestly?  For the first 40-50% of this book I wasn’t sure if this one was going to work for me personally (like, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t wowing me).  But damn, it just turned right around and got better and better as the story went on, and ended with a big bang!!  YAY!!!  I’d say the first half was 3 stars for me, the last half 5 stars…so I averaged.  I’m sort of considering the half star bump up, but I can’t decide…so take from that what you will.

So let’s get the start out of the way.  If you’re a huge fan of enemies to lovers, you can skip this part, because I’m sure you’ll be in from the beginning.  I tend to be…squeamish about meanness.  I know that sounds stupid, but the whole hate fucking isn’t a thing that resonates with me.  I read it, I get it happens, I get that it works for lots of people, I’m just not one of them.  So I get second-hand uncomfortable sometimes, and I think that was happening a lot in the first half.  Which is funny, b/c I think it was almost necessary in some ways to see just how far the feud was between the families, so all the stuff in the second half happened in context for the reader (and thus, I’m bumping it up a half star, I do what I want).  I think when I first read the blurb I had visions of Romeo and Juliet in my head, so I glossed right over the hate stuff and assumed it was mostly the families, but wouldn’t be them too, you know?  After reading for a bit, I went back and reread the blurb and in that context it read differently for me, so I don’t think it’s misleading…I think my brain just misinterpreted.  Now if it was seriously awful meanness, I would not have continued.  So this is not over the top or anything, I’m just sensitive.

And phew, that part’s done.  The problem now is that most of what I loved happened in the second half, but I don’t want to give things away, you know?  Let’s see how well I do.

It took me awhile to connect with Maggie — again, I wasn’t comfortable with the jabbing.  And I was worried that her ambitions would cross the line for me.  But as the book went on I got to see a lot of facets to who she is.  I LOVE how smart and determined and ambitious she is.  She’s so bright and forward thinking.  She’s also got a soft heart, even if it is reluctant to be soft at first.

The same thing happened with Tate.  He seems so cocky and arrogant at the beginning, but it sort of softens into just confidence.  He loves his family (even if they make me grumble), he has a strong work ethic, and his heart is just as reluctantly soft.

I think what I loved most in this book is that once things got going, they both inevitably brought out the best in one another.  Which is kind of odd for an enemies to lovers, but there you go.  Their competitiveness ended up following into daring each other to be honest almost.  One would go that extra mile, and then the next time the other would.  And it made my heart happy each and every time.

The family stuff was crazy.  I mean, I was worried it wouldn’t be explained in a way that worked for me, but those worries were for naught.  It almost makes me want to see more.  Thank god for that epilogue.

So yeah.  Strange reading experience.  I took my book upstairs to start reading in bed and mourned to my hubby that I wasn’t sure I was going to like it as much as others have, and then Ms. Denault took me on a journey and proved me wrong.