#44 [2018/CBR10] "Brooklynaire" by Sarina Bowen

I was in Yosemite. I'd just finished my backpacking trip and had a couple of days to decompress and explore the park before I went home. I was looking for something fun to read in my downtime when I was browsing books on my phone and found Brooklynaire (2018) by Sarina Bowen. The cheesy, hunky picture, the hilarious title, an author I already liked, and the fact that my brother and sister-in-law live in Brooklyn all had me immediately interested.

But even better, the story takes place with a professional hockey team. Back in high school and college, I was deeply interested in hockey and had the largest crush a teenage girl could have on Peter Forsberg of the Colorado Avalanche. Reading these Brooklyn Bruiser books by Sarina Bowen has been like my high school/college fantasy come to life, and Brooklynaire was probably my favorite.

Rebecca started working for Nate about seven years ago, when his small, disorganized tech business was just getting off the ground, and she's been an indispensable office manager/assistant ever since. However, two years ago, Nate bought an NHL team, the Brooklyn Bruisers, and he asked Rebecca to leave his office to work under the Bruisers GM and help with the team. While not a demotion, Rebecca was still hurt that he'd asked her to move.

Rebecca doesn't know that part of the reason Nate asked her to shift jobs is that he'd become intensely attracted to her and found it distracting. However, Rebecca steps out on the ice one day to deliver some papers to a coworker and slips on the ice, falling and hitting her head. When her concussion symptoms won't go away, a concerned Nate starts spending more time with her.

And eventually the two can't keep their hands off each other. The two have a very relaxed, friendly relationship from years of working together. But one or both of them has always been with someone else, so romance was always out of the question. Even now that they are both single, Nate is Becca's boss. Even after they get together, Becca is intensely worried about how people will judge her. She is also concerned about the vast difference in their incomes. Nate has more money, power, and influence than pretty much anyone else in the country.

In the end, I really enjoyed this book. It was fun, funny, and sexy. Nate was such a desirable, rich, likable nerd, and Becca was a great companion to him. Apparently, Brooklynaire is the last book Bowen wrote about the Bruiser's hockey team, but it was the first one I picked up. Technically, it's a standalone book, but some of the other books occur at overlapping times, and you can see glimpses of the other romances occurring at the same time. I think they'd be enjoyable in any order.