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I'm finding that the books in this series are most interesting to me when both love interests grow as characters. Ilya & Shane both grow as characters HR & TLG. Ryan & Fabian both grow in Tough Guy.

In Role Model, Troy grows a lot, and was an interesting character to follow. Whereas his love interest Harris remains a manic pixie dream boy for the whole book.

I thought it was a solid choice to have one of the romances in the series be between a player and somebody who works for their team but isn't another player. But Harris was just so... uninteresting. There was potential there but instead he felt like an NPC rather than a main character.

I appreciated the detailed content warning at the start of the book! Made a big difference for me to know what to expect going in.

I wouldn't recommend reading this book in isolation. If you have (or intend to) read The Long Game it's worth it as background, but otherwise it's kind of bland compared to the other books in the series. I would strongly recommend reading Tough Guy before reading this book, a lot of the context for Troy's character arc starts there.

Read this after reading Heated Rivalry and Game Changer. After two books of hockey players doing everything they can to avoid get outed as gay including avoiding gay bars, clubs, community, etc, it was kind of hilarious to find out that Ryan Price (this book's protagonist) has spent the same time period casually going to gay events and living in the gay village, and coming out to his teammates, and nobody outed him to the public because that would be fucking rude. 😂

(Yes, I know Ryan isn't as big a star as Scott, Ilya, or Shane, but still. 😂)

Ryan's romance with Fabian is cute and I kinda wish we'd had more on how athletes and musicians actually have a lot in common - I've heard musicians say they are "athletes of the fine motor system".

I initially skipped this book, going straight to The Long Game after Heated Rivalry, and I wish I'd read this book first. Would recommend it.

Wish I'd read this before reading The Long Game, would recommend reading it for those who read Heated Rivalry and want more.

Ooh it's set in Toronto! <3

This book does an impressive job of capturing how waiting in an institutional context day in and day out drives you kind of crazy, especially as a service worker. The setting of a trans-Canadian train ride really hits the sort of CanLit trope of "the Canadian wilderness is vast and empty like my soul" meme, but like, in a good way. Would recommend, especially for anybody looking for historical queer/black fiction or who just likes trains.

I enjoyed it and was glad to get more Hollanov! It made me cry. Only minor complaints - the pacing was kind of uneven (e.g. slow start, rushed ending) and it was weird to see Russian patronymics repeated called "middle names" (they're not middle names). Definitely worth the read if you liked Heated Rivalry.

Guessing at start/end dates, read the comics as separate books but don't want to manually enter every one.

Guessing at start/end dates, read the comics as separate books but don't want to manually enter every one.