SO OVER YOU
Chicago Rebels series, Book 2
Kate Meader
Pocket Star EBooks
December 4, 2017
$5.99
ISBN: 978150116856

Three estranged sisters struggle to sustain their late father’s failing hockey franchise in Kate Meader’s SO OVER YOU, Book 2 in the new sizzling Chicago Rebels series. Middle sister Isobel is at a crossroads in her personal and professional lives. But both are about to get a significant boost with the addition of a domineering Russian powerhouse to the Rebels…

Isobel Chase knows hockey. She played NCAA, won silver at the Games, and made it thirty-seven minutes into the new National Women’s Hockey League before an injury sidelined her dreams. Those who can’t, coach, and a position as a skating consultant to her late father’s hockey franchise, the Chicago Rebels, seems like a perfect fit. Until she’s assigned her first job: the man who skated into her heart as a teen and relieved her of her pesky virginity. These days, left-winger Vadim Petrov is known as the Czar of Pleasure, a magnet for puck bunnies and the tabloids alike. But back then…let’s just say his inability to sink the puck left Isobel frustratingly scoreless.

Vadim has a first name that means “ruler,” and it doesn’t stop at his birth certificate. He dominates on the ice, the practice rink, and in the backseat of a limo. But a knee injury has produced a bad year, and bad years in the NHL don’t go unrewarded. His penance? To be traded to a troubled team where his personal coach is Isobel Chase, the woman who drove him wild years ago when they were hormonal teens. But apparently, the feeling was not entirely mutual.

About the author:

Kate Meader was raised on romance. An Irish girl, she started with Catherine Cookson and Jilly Cooper novels and spiced it up with some Mills & Boon. Now based in Chicago, she writes romances of her own, where sexy contemporary alpha heroes and strong heroines match each other quip for quip. When not immersed in tales of brooding mill owners, oversexed equestrians, and men who can rock an apron or a fire hose, Kate lives on the web at katemeader.com.

Giveaway:
Kate Meader will be giving away a $25 Amazon gift card during release week.
To enter, please go here!

Excerpt

He leaned in again, smelling of fame, privilege, and raw sex appeal. Discomfort at his proximity edged out the hormonal sparks dancing through her body.

“Does Moretti know that we have history? That you are the last person I wish to work with?”

Before she could respond, someone squealed, “Vadim!” A blond, skinny, buxom someone, who now wrapped herself around Vadim in a very possessive manner. “You said you’d be back with a dwinkie!”

A dwinkie?

Drawing back, Vadim circled the squealer’s waist and pulled her into his hard body. “Kotyonok, I did not mean to be so long.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, needing to bend considerably because she was just so darn petite! Not like big-boned Isobel, who could have eaten this chick and her five supermodel Playmates for a midmorning snack. A group of them stood off to the side, clearly waiting for the signal to start the orgy. And Vadim clearly wanted to give it, except he had to deal with the annoying six-foot fly in the sex ointment.

Why did the lumberjack hotties always go for twigs instead of branches? Did it make them feel more virile to screw a pocket-sized Barbie?

Yep, feeling like a schlub. 

But he didn’t need to know that. All he needed to know was that she had the power to return him to competitive ice. This was her best shot at making a difference and getting the Rebels to a coveted play-off spot. Vadim Petrov and his butt-hurt feelings would not stand in her way.

“Do you need to talk about it, Russian?”

She infused as much derision into the question as possible, so that the idea of “talking about it” made him sound a touch less than manly. Big, bad, brick-house Russians didn’t need to talk about the women who done them wrong.

“There is nothing to talk about,” he uttered in that voice that used to send Siberian shivers down her back. Now? Nothing more than a Muscovian flurry.

“Excellent!” Superscary cheerful face. “Regular practice is tomorrow at ten, so I’ll see you on the ice at 9 a.m. Don’t be late.”

Pretty happy with her exit line, she walked away.

Far too easy.

A brute hand curled around hers and pulled her to the other side of the bar, out of the sight line of most of the VIP room. She found her back against a wall—literally and figuratively—as 230 pounds of Slavic muscle loomed over her.

He still held her hand.

If she weren’t so annoyed, she’d think it was kind of nice.

She yanked it away. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Who am I?” he boomed, and she prayed it was rhetorical. Unfortunately, no. “I am Vadim Petrov. Leading goal scorer for my first two years in the NHL. Winner of both the Kontinental and the Gagarin Cups. A man not to be trifled with. And you are, who, exactly? The daughter of a hockey great who was not so great when it came to running a team. The woman who can no longer play yet thinks she can offer ‘tips’ to me. To me! You may have pedigree, Isobel, but there is nothing I can learn from you.”

This arrogant, douchewaffle piece of shit!

Kate Meader is an author that has been on my radar for quite a while. I actually own the second book in her firefighter romance series, Playing With Fire (which I will definitely be reading in the future). So when I had the opportunity to review the second book in her Chicago Rebels series, So Over You, which is a hockey romance series, I didn’t hesitate.

Something you should know about me is that hockey romances are probably one of my favorite romance sub-genres EVER and this mainly has to do with the fact that my brother played for his entire childhood into college so I grew up in ice rinks. Then, when I found out the romance involved a brooding Russian hockey player, a heroine who used to be professional hockey player herself, and that it was a second chance romance, I was hooked before I even began reading.

Hockey runs through Isobel Chase’s veins and why wouldn’t it when your father was a famous hockey player, the owner of a hockey team, and spent your entire childhood training you to become the next best thing in the hockey world. Her dreams of being a professional female hockey player had come true until it all came crashing down. Now, years later, Isobel has turned to coaching and ever since she and her sisters inherited their father’s hockey team, the Chicago Rebels, she has set her sights on becoming a coach for that very team. The only things standing in her way is the fact that she is a woman in a male-dominated sport and she co-owns the team which would look bad if she just made herself coach given the scrutiny she and her sisters have already gotten. Oh, and the man she gave her virginity to years ago, Vadim Petrov, who just so happens to be her first client and who also wants nothing to do with her.

Vadim Petrov has just been traded to the Chicago Rebels, a team that has consistently struggled over the years. On top of now playing for this less than ideal team, Vadim must also be personally coached by the woman he wants nothing to do with given how their relationship ended years ago (badly as you can imagine). But Vadim doesn’t have a choice because Isobel is determined to make this personal coaching assignment beneficial for both of them, so that he can recover from his injury and she has the chance to become a full-time coach for the Rebels based purely on her work ethic and not because she is a co-owner of the team. This professional relationship not only starts off with them butting heads but when their feelings for one another come to the surface again, things begin to heat up on and off the ice.

I said I was hooked before I even began reading this book but those feelings never strayed because I absolutely LOVED this book. It combined so many things that I love. The two main ones are hockey and the fact that Vadim and Isobel hated each other int he beginning and butted heads with one another which lead to some wonderful, sexual tension-filled loves scenes. They challenged each other at almost every turn and that passion for the game also translated towards how they felt towards each other.  I also cannot express enough how much I LOVED that Isobel was a professional hockey player because um, you never see that in a sports romance especially focused on hockey. Oh, and as someone who is tall, I really appreciated that Isobel was six feet tall because it is another element you don’t usually see in romance, at least that is what I have found.

While Isobel and Vadim’s relationship was the focal point in this novel, Kate Meader did an amazing job allowing the reader to also fall in love with the cast of secondary characters. Isobel’s sisters and their relationship together was great to see as they continue to learn how to get along since, Violet, the youngest Chase sister, only came into their lives a few months ago. I personally enjoyed the foreshadowing of the relationships to come like Violet and her relationship with a certain Scottish hockey player. The secondary characters and the interactions we got to see really helped you delve deeper into this fabulous world of hockey.

All I have to say is that if you are a fan of hockey romances, you NEED to not only pick up this book but also this entire series.