Expected Release: Fall 2025

Joan Warren runs a nonprofit that aims to give hockey equipment, skating lessons, and hockey practice time to underprivileged Boston kids, including organizing a small club of teams that the kids can play against. Her nonprofit barely breaks even, but she’s given ice time at a local rundown rink and makes the best of it. She adores the kids and is an excellent skater, teacher, and player.

All is well until the Boston Bears pro hockey team needs a rink for their late-summer training camp while their own practice facility undergoes repairs that won’t be done until the start of the regular season. The privileged Boston Bears take over Joan’s rink, the kids’ locker rooms, and her own personal space—ridiculing the ice, the amenities, and what she’s made of a location for kids who wouldn’t otherwise get to play.

Daniel “Dandy” Stoller is hockey royalty. He comes from a long line of hockey greats, but he isn’t one of them. A bottom-D, he has lost his love of the game but can’t disappoint his dynasty family by following his truer passions: golfing, investing, and avoiding his high-maintenance girlfriend whenever possible. As one of the most privileged of the Bears, he repeatedly goes head-to-head with Joan, until she makes him learn the error of his ways, and the kids steal a special place in his heart—with a little help from a lovable bluetick coonhound—rekindling in Dandy his love of the game. As his relationship with Joan becomes more than acquaintances, Dandy must reconcile his feelings for his own girlfriend and the massive secret investing deal that he’s entered into with plans to level the rink and make way for new development.

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Tropes + Styles: Slow burn, sassy girl/sassy boy, enemies to lovers, pro hockey, amateur golfing, jealous girlfriend, fake relationship, forced proximity (player + trainer), adorable dog, adorable kids, dramatic with rom-com elements, sibling adversaries, secrets, known betrayal

Interests: Boston, New England, dogs, golfing, investing, real estate, class disparity, wealthy privilege, recovery, country clubs, anisocoria, fashion galas, Barbie dolls

CW: Alcoholism (mild, hopeful toward sobriety), domestic violence (mild, mostly off the page), animal abuse (mild, mostly off the page), familial and societal pressures (medium), bad parenting (medium, child abuse off the page), wealth gaps and class disparity (major), adultery (mild, mostly off the page, secondary characters only), physical defect from health problems (mild, eye)

Reading Level: Intelligent, involved

Contains: Sex ✔ Condoms ✔ HEA ✔ Language ✔ POV: 3rd Person

Primary Characters: Boston Bears (Team), Daniel “Dandy” Stoller, Joan Warren

Secondary Characters: Blueliner (Dog) Erika McClosky, Brittany Naylor, Scotty Stoller, Gage, Connor “Saint” St. James, Paula

Tertiary Characters: Carter, Aidan, Maverick Jeffries, Mr. Jeffries, Tate “Tater” Keaton, Lollipop (Dog), Gumdrop (Dog), Heidi Stoller, Cade Stoller, Reese, Quinn, Thomas, Natalie

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