Secretly hooking up with the team captain’s sister was a bad idea.
In my defense, the first time I saw her I didn’t know who she was.
Kind, gorgeous, a little naïve. Ginny brightened my world from day one.
I knew I was no good for her. She was just out of a relationship and I had a reputation for having a new girl in my bed every weekend.
I tried to do the right thing. Honest.
I’m the one who insisted we should be just friends.
That lasted about as long as you’d expect.
But Ginny? She’s the best – best friend, best everything.
So yeah, hooking up with the team captain’s sister wasn’t a great idea.
Would I do it again?
In a heartbeat.
| Title: | Secret Puck |
| Author: | Rebecca Jenshak |
| Series: | Campus Nights (Book 1) |
| Pages: | 310 |
| Category / Genre(s): | New Adult |
| Trope(s): | Brother’s Best Friend / Best Friend’s Little Sister |
| Point of View: | |
| Location: | Arizona, US |
| HEA: | ✔️ |
| Release Date: | 19th October, 2020 |
 |  |  |  |
Likeable, young romance
Rebecca Jenshak is a new to me author, despite having many of her books on my wishlist as a result of my newly discovered enjoyment of new adult romances.
This particular book is the first in a new series, Campus Nights, about a group of students at Valley University in Arizona. We get to meet lots of characters in this books – Ginny’s new friends and her brother’s (and Heath’s) teammates from the hockey team. Presumably some, if not all, of those characters will get future books in the series.
So, alongside all these characters, we get a lot of detail about the comings and goings of Ginny, Heath and their friends. And I mean a lo-ot of detail. Detail that, to my mind, wasn’t required for the story or for building the scene. Just bits and pieces of extra information that I didn’t know what to do with. It never slowed down the story, but I admit to being a bit confused by the need for such minutia.
Ginny was a nice-enough character, but she came across as a little needy to me. I know these are young people, but she seemed very immature and inexperienced in life. It was hard for me to root for her when I had nothing in common with her.
“It’s not that I hated this book, it just didn’t illicit any strong reactions or emotions in me…”
Similarly, Heath came across as a little young, and nothing like the kind of hero that I would swoon over. As much as I like a ‘forbidden’ romance, in this case, there was no reason for this to be so. If Ginny had told her brother where to go, if Heath had been a bit more adult about the whole thing – there would be no reason for sneaking around.
My main reason for the lower rating was that I just didn’t feel the connection between Ginny and Heath. Their first meeting was surprisingly lacklustre and suddenly we’re being told that there’s a crazy connection between the two. I must have missed that. And, sadly, continued to miss it.
This book certainly wasn’t bad. The writing was interesting and kept me reading, even if I couldn’t 100% get behind the characters or the story. Before I started reading NA romance, I feared that I wouldn’t feel any connection with the characters with this disparity in our ages. That’s how I felt with this book. It made me feel old and weary faced with excitable, impulsive college age kids.
It’s really difficult when you go to review a book only to find that everyone adored it – except you! It’s not that I hated this book, it just didn’t illicit any strong reactions or emotions in me, which made it a 3-star read. But if it takes your fancy, or you’re a fan of Rebecca Jenshak, then still give this book a go. I hope I’m just the exception that proves the rule!
New York Times/USA Today bestselling author Melanie Moreland, lives a happy and content life in a quiet area of Ontario with her beloved husband of twenty-seven-plus years and their rescue cat, Amber. Nothing means more to her than her friends and family, and she cherishes every moment spent with them.
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Campus Nights Series:
No Comments