Back Check by Kelly Jamieson

Back Check is the fourth book in Jamieson’s sports-romance series about Chicago hockey players. I’ve read and enjoyed them all. I think the best part of each book is the interaction among the players as they get together and try to puzzle out romance in their clueless alpha guys’ way. This story involves Tanner Bennett who has to be the best man in his pal’s wedding. Bennett thinks that he is bad luck for weddings including his own short-lived romance. The wedding is for Marc Dupuis, the protagonist from the first book in the series, Major Misconduct.

The wedding planner for the wedding is Katelyn Medford who just happened to be Tanner’s first love from college. They had experienced a lovely romance but she had broken it off when he got his pro contract and he’d always resented that she didn’t give them a chance to carry on the romance. Little does he know that Katelyn had a legitimate and tragic reason why she couldn’t follow him to New York.

This is a sweet second-chance romance. We know that they’re going to fall for each other once again. The author doesn’t hold out forever to let the reader know what the reason was that Katelyn had had to break it off with him. I get irritated with books that try to hide the reason for the major misunderstanding until the end of the book so I was glad to get that out of the way. Another fault of other sports romances is that the sports is just an excuse to have a hot hero, but there isn’t much sports in the book. Jamieson is sure to include enough actual hockey to rise above that. And she includes the interaction among the guys for humorous interchanges among the guys to continue the fun.

I was provided a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.