Katy Archer The Forbidden Freshman

 

Nolan U Hockey Book 1

read in 2025

This book kept popping up on my Facebook wall, I enjoy Hockey Romance and college romance so thought I would make this my next read. 

Mikayla (our lead lady) is a freshman it’s made clear to the reader pretty quickly that she is in a precarious situation  where she has lost her housing after the dorm she was staying in caught fire and now has no other options but to pledge to a sorority where she doesn’t fit in in order to stay at the school.  Mikayla’s father left when she was younger and she is reliant on her mother and her mother’s wealthy fiancé to help pay for school, they have made her sign a ridiculous contract where in order to continue to have her school paid for she needs to abide by a set of rules, which includes pledging to a sorority (the same one her mom went to when she was at the college).  Mikayla has had no say where she goes to school and now can’t even just focus on school as she is now part of hell week at this sorority, she doesn’t want to be in.     

Her soon to be step sister is the president of the house and has given her an impossible initiation task of making campus playboy Ethan (star hockey player) fall for her and then publicly shaming him and breaking his heart Mikayla not wanting anything to do with this at first (she doesn't even want to be in this group just needs a place to stay) storms away from the house only to end up unknowingly running into her intended target (if she takes the mission) he is handsome, charming and saves her from a car full of creepers while she is walking alone at night. 

Ethan is not a relationship type of guy college is for fun, partying and sleeping around, not getting tied down to one woman, no thanks! Betting with one of his hockey buddies one night on a game of darts he ends up losing the bet and now he has to be celibate for omg... a whole month it's going to seriously destroy him he can't do anything to take care of his "needs" for a month or he has to walk around campus naked for a day (which isn't happening it will upset the coach).  This part of the plot I found laughable if your biggest issue is not getting any for a month things are going well in your life. 

Mikayla spends the night after meeting Ethan sleeping outside the hockey rink, she gets a call from her mom basically demanding she apologize to her heinous step sister and do what she wants her to do to "not embarrass" her and remind her of signing a document agreeing to this or her school won't be paid for, Mikayla feeling trapped due to having no other options with her dad out of the picture and not wanting to rack up a bunch of student loan debt feels that her only option is to return and apologize to the sorority sisters.

This is where we have our main characters in a situation where Mikayla agrees to try to get Ethan to "fall" for her when she knows it's an impossible task and Ethan now in a dry streak not able to satisfy his needs but he finds he likes Mikayla and wants to hang out with her but can't go further leading to misunderstandings on both sides.  Mikayla is also very emotional and frequently gets upset and doesn’t want to talk it out, it did feel like Ethan was the more mature one of the pair.  The reader could see that the path was headed down to Ethan’s wager being found out and Mikayla’s initiation plan being revealed but when?  If Mikayla doesn’t get into the sorority, where will she live?  Will her mom and the fiancé still pay for school if she doesn’t get in?  Will her mom ever accept her the way she is?  Why did she sign that contract anyways!  

I enjoyed the hockey team/roommate’s dynamic, and it was cute to see Ethan actually start to fall for someone when he gave himself more than a few fun nights.  The story kept me interested, probably could have been a shorter book. It was pretty repetitive at times; the writer often discussed that Mikayla "didn't fit in" and continued to work this into the story.  Some spice, more in the back half of the book. Ethan has given Mikayla the nickname "little mouse" which is used frequently, and the teammates that live together use puck in place of another four-letter word "pucked up" "puck off" etc. 

The last chapter was used as the start to the next book, maybe we will get more about this couple throughout the rest of the series, I downloaded the bonus chapter but as of now I have not read it yet.