The hook here is sharper than your average sports romance setup. Evan Zanders is the NHL villain by design: penalty box regular, tabloid bad boy, a man who's decided being hated is easier than being known. Stevie is the new flight attendant on the team's private plane, which puts her beneath him in the org chart and entirely unbothered by him everywhere else. Tomforde mines that workplace-adjacent tension well. He can summon her, she can't escape him, and the close quarters of road trips keep forcing two people who've decided to dislike each other into proximity. The call-button bit could've been a one-note gag. Instead it turns into a kind of flirting neither of them will cop to, and I'll admit those scenes made me grin more than once.
What makes the book work is that the hate softens into something specific rather than generic. Zanders has a persona he performs, and the slow reveal of the man underneath is where the emotional payoff lives: the gap between his reputation and his actual life, the tenderness he keeps offstage. Stevie has her own armor, a hard rule about never getting tangled with an athlete again, and Tomforde gives her a backstory that makes that rule feel earned rather than convenient. The chemistry builds in increments. By the time the wall comes down, you've watched it crack in a dozen small scenes, so the turn lands instead of just happening.
Tonally this sits closer to romantic comedy than angst-heavy drama, though there are real stakes under the banter. The dialogue is quick, the bickering is fun, and the pacing keeps the road-trip structure moving without letting the middle sag. On heat, readers report it runs steamy, with the physical scenes earning their place because the buildup does the heavy lifting. The tension pays off rather than carrying the whole book. Fans of grumpy-meets-softer dynamics and reformed-playboy arcs will be well fed.
It's also worth noting how much warmth Tomforde packs around the central couple. The found-family feel of the team gives the romance a wider world to breathe in, and readers tend to single out the supporting cast as a big part of the charm. This is book one of interconnected standalones, so it reads fine alone, but several side characters are clearly being set up for their own turns, and the seeding is done with a light hand.
Why you should read
- Readers who love reformed-playboy heroes with a soft hidden core
- Fans of hockey and sports romance with workplace-tension setups
- Anyone who wants banter-forward rom-com energy with steamy heat
- Found-family and series-binge readers ready to start a connected world
What to expect
- Slow-burn pacing with sustained tension across a confined, recurring setting
- A brooding hero whose edges soften gradually and believably
- Banter that carries emotional weight beneath the surface
- Contemporary romance tone — warm but not saccharine
- A satisfying emotional climax that rewards patient readers
If you come to this wanting the enemies portion to stay genuinely thorny, you may find the antagonism dissolves faster and more sweetly than the premise promises. This is enemies-to-lovers that's more about misjudged first impressions than deep, sustained conflict. But if you want a hockey romance with real chemistry, a hero worth the redemption, and an emotional arc that delivers, this is a confident, satisfying opener.
