Honey Phillips: Perfect Pucking Orc

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/247557793-perfect-pucking-orc

Book Blurb:

He controls everything—except her.

As captain of the Emerald Enforcers, Tarmek Stonefist is disciplined, controlled, and ruthlessly organized—on the ice and off it. Chaos has no place in his world.

Then free-spirited artist Edie Anderson crashes into his carefully ordered life and turns it upside down. She’s impulsive, emotional, and completely uninterested in schedules.

She challenges him. Tempts him. And the more he tries to regain control, the faster he feels it slipping away.

Perfect order. Perfect chaos.
Perfectly pucking dangerous.

The Orc Hockey League is a cozy-spicy monster romance series where fierce orc athletes rule the ice, rivalries run hot, and love hits harder than a body check. Each book can be read as a standalone and ends with a happily ever after.

Tropes:

*Orc MMC x Human FMC *Sports Romance (hockey) *opposites attract *tidy MMC

*Messy FMC *spice *Pierced 👇 MMC *cozy monster romance *state challenge NY (repeat)

*Grumpy MMC but soft for her *he falls first *forced proximity *snow storm *grumpy/sunshine

Thoughts:

Book 1 Emerald Enforcers

Tarmek Stonefist (MMC) likes everything to be in the right place, he has many routines and he follows them perfectly, even his laces to his skates need to be aligned properly, he is single he lives alone and he has his career as the captain of the local hockey team what more could he want?

Edie (FMC) is everything Tarmek worries about... she is chaos in the form of a human female she is messy, disorganized and has the audacity to come into his space and touch his things... how dare she!  He is also going to have to deal with her for an unknown length of time since she's been hired to paint murals in the arena.

Edie goes with the flow she is an artist and free spirit she lives in a camper and travels when she wants never staying in one place too long, she doesn't want to grow attached to anyone/anything and wear out her welcome... so when she starts to feel closer to the people in this town it scares her... growing attached to people who could potentially leave her is something she can't deal with.

Tarmek is worried about Edie she has been staying in her RV in the parking lot of the arena but it looks like it needs a lot of work... is the heat even working?  One evening he's at the arena late and knows there is a snow storm brewing and all his team mates have left early he checks on Edie only to find her frozen in her RV... the heat isn't working this won't do at all.

Next thing you know he is doing what he never imagined he would do he brings Edie home with him she is now in his home disorganizing his organized life and... the weirdest part about it is he doesn't mind... could this be his fated mate?  He's heard about them growing up but never expected to have one to call his very own.

While this was a cute cozy read, it was really repetitive and the plot wasn't that deep basically every chapter discussed Tarmek's organized life style and how Edie came in like a tornado and rearranged his life it briefly throughout mentions bits of their childhood like Edie grew up in foster care but there were inconsistencies over (what age) when her mother dropped her off.  Tarmek's family life was chaotic as well but it doesn't go into great detail only that his dad was a bit of a hot head and his mom just dealt with it. 

Where I loved Tarmek he was a green flag, teddy bear MMC.  I grew frustrated with Edie she knew that he like order and had his systems and she went out of her way (especially at the very beginning) to mess with his things... like you just met this man and she was stealing food off of his plate at a restaurant and rearranging his things, even after he invited her to stay with him during the storm she was being a chaos goblin and moving his things around, not cool he's letting you stay with him and he is feeding you and keeping you warm how about at least trying to work with his system.

I liked the premise of an Orc hockey team and it seems that other books in this series are from different authors so I would like to check out the rest of the series eventually, there isn't really much hockey going on in this book occasionally they have practice and there are brief mentions of a few games but other than that it's just Tarmek allowing tornado Edie to rearrange his organized life.  

Edie constantly had one foot out of the door so that kind of bothered me as well, Tarmek even after he told her how he felt she ran... again, and by that point I was frustrated for him he was trying to give her space "to think" gave her space in his home for her art and now he has to fight too hard to keep her and she wanted him to fight for her... how bout meeting him half way! 

Anyways I'm team Tarmek!  

This was a fun take on the hockey romance I just didn't fully feel the chemistry between these two, I do plan to check out the next in the series and see how that goes.

As a side note --> I was surprised he had a pierced ding dong that seemed kind of out of character for orderly organized Tarmek and didn't really add anything to the story.  

Have you read this one?  What did you think? 

Marissa Eller: Left On Read

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/232794089-left-on-read

Book Blurb:

In this rivals-to-lovers romcom from Marissa Eller, overachiever Murphy wants one thing: to be the top student in her school. So when a student who could beat her turns up, she tries to keep her eyes on her own paper… and off this infuriatingly perfect boy.

School is everything to Murphy—literally everything, since she’s missed out on all of the Traditional High School Things in pursuit of academic success. Her senior year is going to be perfect, and so is she... because she's pushing herself to her physical and mental limit. All she needs to do is ignore her mounting anxiety! Which is probably clinical! La la la!

But Hayes—her ultrasmart, ultra-annoying rival for valedictorian—is making her year far less perfect than she imagined.

He's after that top spot, and he doesn’t care who he has to shove outside. But when Murphy and Hayes are paired up for a group project on student mental health, Murphy discovers that he might be the only one who understands what she’s going through. The burnout. The self-doubt. The unrelenting grind. Together, they can stand up to the pressures of academia, family, and the way most traveled... if they partner up in more ways than one.

Tropes:

*Netgalley ALC *Enemies --> More *High school romance *high stress *class rivals

*Mental health representation *State Challenge North Carolina *long term grudge 

*Single POV *good friend group *age appropriate YA 

Thoughts:

Have you ever been looking forward to something for... forever and once you have it it's not as great as you thought it would be?  

That is what Nova (FMC) is dealing with her senior year of high school, she is in a special school for academics where the high schoolers also work on taking college classes she's known for a long time she wants to be a professor of literature and she has put this certain professor on a pedestal only the professor is unenthusiastic about the course spends long hours on her phone while playing movies, answers 0 questions and isn't preparing anyone in this course for anything... to top things off her nemesis in all academic related things Hayes is in this class with her.

Hayes has pressure put on him by his parents who want him to be a doctor like them, but he is more of a numbers guy... would they even allow him to pursue a degree in what he actually wants to do?  

Hayes (MMC) is not as bad as Nova initially thought he was while he has been her rival in the past he is charming and can win over a crowd way easier, and it doesn't help that he has a handsome face what's up with that?  can't he have horrible acne or something?  But he has been surprising her in unexpected ways he notices when she needs space and tells everyone in class how brilliant she is with this subject and she might be just what they all need to succeed.

Next thing you know Nova is teaming up with Hayes and it's getting harder to resist that she's feeling more drawn to him.  But she has been hurt in the past and doesn't want to repeat that... Hayes has hurt her in the past too he could just as easily do it again and they are both up for class president again and he won last time! 

While the leads get closer together they are not really shown doing much more than studying together and going to a county fair that gets cut short by Nova's migraine, so we don't really see much of them "together" as a real couple.

Nova at times is shown as immature and a bit over the top dramatic and then she will be incredibly mature and able to lead a group of college students in a study session. 

I felt everything that did wrap up wrapped up quickly and at least one of the bigger plot points was just kind of left open ended.  I would have liked just a little more depth to the characters I didn't fully feel invested at times with the characters or their relationship due to just knowing surface level basics about them.  

This was a cute YA read both leads are struggling with high stress placed on them by themselves and in the MMC's case his parents as well.  The rivals in school aspect reminded me of the show "Never Have I Ever."

I appreciated the leads working together to try to help get appropriate mental health services set up for future students setting their sights on higher academic goals.

I understand that I am not the target audience for this book and believe that middle school/high school kids looking for an age appropriate romance might enjoy this one.  

The narrator did a great job bringing this story to life! 

have you read this one?  What did you think?