My quest for good romance continues with a book recommended to me on Pajiba my online home away from home.
Max Ashford’s career in the NHL was cut short when a checking accident on the ice left him with compromised peripheral vision. Working on a career behind the bench, he joins head coach Misha Samarin with the Spartanburg Spitfires in South Carolina. It’s an ECHL team – meaning a double A hockey franchise that acts as a feeder to the minors and, with any luck for the players, to the NHL itself. The pay isn’t great, but Max is paying his dues and Misha is financially secure after a long career playing for the NHL. He also happens to be the opponent who was involved in Max’s career ending injury.
Chosen for the potential publicity resulting from their NHL encounter, the Spitfire’s unscrupulous owner hires them for the losingest team in the league. Neither man is thrilled and only Misha is still carrying any baggage from the accident, but he and Max slowly pull the players into a solid team. Along the way they, of course, fall in love.
Overall, I enjoyed Power Play. The lead characters were both interesting and likeable, Max in particular is adorable, and Gale alternated between their perspectives really well, including Misha’s excellent, but not perfect English. For drama, the story had Misha’s angst over many elements in his past including what he had to do to get away from his monster of a father and safely out of Russia. A gay man who has largely closeted himself, he has some issues to work through and is a brooder. Cheerful, easygoing Max, on the other hand, has recently realised he is bisexual and while the attraction to Misha surprises him, he’s not fighting any battles against it, or anything else.
With Power Play, I am again wondering where I can find a romance in which both leads are just, if you’ll excuse the pun, straight up bisexual or gay. Why does this kind of relationship have to be new to one or both of the men involved? Why can’t they both have have comfortably dated men in the past? I don’t need sexual initiation scenes. I just want to read a love story about two people finding their match without drama surrounding their orientation. Having looked at other books in the series, it seems each pairing suffers from this same syndrome so I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of them. Fortunately, the same lovely person who suggested this book provided me with a long list of other LBGTQ romances to try, so I will be moving on to another novel soon.
Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful or my streamlined recommendations list. I have a list of LGBTQ romances, too.
I’m going to guess, and it’s just a guess based on not even anecdata, it has to do with who is writing the story or the intended audience. Books written for those on the outside looking in are going to focus on different elements, and the whole coming out thing plays better to straight readers/writers.
(However, that’s a total guess, and I could be wide of the mark.)
I think that is the case, too, but in talking to folks here and on Facebook I think we are more ready for a non-orientation considering story about two dudes falling in love.
…than we are given credit for. This book is better than the “gay for you” trope, but it has other B/G trope-y stuff that I could have done without.
Max actually acknowledges that if was offensive of him to assume that he might have relations with a man but not a relationship.