Series: Crossing the Line*
Release Date: June 5th, 2013
I’m Evan Mason, an NHL hockey player for the Chicago Blackhawks. I spend my nights roughing up two hundred pound defensemen and, at times, spend more time in the penalty box than I do on the ice.
That’s my job.
One night changed everything I thought I once knew about my life on, and off, the ice.
A girl.
A brutally beaten girl left to die in an alley.
I don’t know why or how but something made me stay that night after taking her to the hospital. I didn’t know her, nor did I have an obligation to stay but something inside of me rooted me there telling me I should stay. Saving a life is worth something. At least I thought so. And I wouldn’t have been me if I just simply left her there.
Any man who put his heart and soul into a game of hockey couldn’t just walk away when someone needed them. She had no one else right now. The same guy who saw determination where there was desire, now saw hope where there was one despair.
I couldn’t leave. That wouldn’t be me. No, not a man that put all he had into something some called just a game. I couldn’t walk away from her holding onto life, weak, and powerless to something she had no control over.
So I stayed. In a room full of family members praying for their loved ones to pull through, I prayed for a girl I didn’t know and had never met before, to have a beating heart. While others’ sorrow turned to grieving pain, I sat waiting on the words of the unknown.
No bond is stronger than the ones you’ll bleed for.
• BIPOC characters
• LGBTQIA+ characters
• characters with a disability
And doesn’t address fatphobia
• Physical abuse
• Violence (blood and gore)
• Death of family
• Grief
• Does have OW
– The Hero has a friends-with-benefits relationship with an OW (who sleeps with a lot of guys on the hockey team). The OW becomes friends with the Heroine and stays friends with the Hero.
• No descriptive sex scene with OW/OM
– There are allusions to the Hero’s past with an OW (not a descriptive scene but thoughts like “freak in the sheets”).
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
• Does have brief separations between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Rating: 4.25/5 stars
*Each novel in the series is Standalone
I love heroes who play professional sports. It might be because it’s the perfect situation for a Cinderella story to arise, but also it just adds a whole other story, the story of the game, to the novel. So Delayed Penalty instantly went on my to-be-read list when I discovered it was about a twenty-year-old boy named Evan who’s in the NHL. But when I found out that it was a romantic suspense novel (kinda sorta) instant purchase. And I have not regretted it.
What really interested me was that Delayed Penalty was cleverly divided into three parts, much like a hockey game and in each chapter, I was introduced to a new piece of hockey slang or terms, with their definitions of course. The writing was written realistically for each character. It was a dual POV between Evan, the NHL hockey player, and the victim, Ami, although Ami’s POV was only introduced in the second “period” due to her being in a coma for the first one. The overall pace of the book was consistent throughout the story, and both the characters showed and displayed a wide range of emotions, from confusion to grief etc. that made perfect sense with the situation they were in.
I loved the characters! I honestly think that Stahl did a much better job writing about Evan than Ami. I think this is because this book was a hockey book through and through. Evan was throwing in hockey lingo left and right, and the descriptions of the games were amazing. I felt that I finally understood hockey after reading this book.
The mystery component really revolves around Evan not being able to rest without the perp who hurt Ami being found. It was interesting, and it brought out a lot of protectiveness from Evan. And what I loved was that the perp was someone totally unexpected, and the aftermath of the discovery was written beautifully. I feel that Stahl perfectly captured the types of emotions both Evan and Ami would be going through when the perp was finally found.
So, DelayedPenalty is a book about sports, has an excellent female lead, and with a little suspense and mystery thrown in there, what’s not to love?
