Icebreaker

Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

Published in 2022

Main Couple: Stassie and Nate

The Story: Athletes at the same college, Stassie and Nate come to a head when they figure skating and hockey teams have to share a rink. Are the sparks between just good ol’ animosity? Or the beginnings of something life changing?

The Sex: There is so much sex in this book. I’m not normally one to count the scenes…but here we go: 9 instances of sexual contact. 6 scenes with penetrative sex. 7 scenes with some sort of foreplay. In a 430 page book, that’s some sort of scene about every 48 pages or so. They are both very giving partners. I almost wanted to count the orgasms for you all, but want to respect the people who can’t have multiple orgasms. Ya’ll I want to see that MC. Even Nate has a scene with almost 0 refractory period. How nice for him. In general, this is really fun sex. If slightly unrealistic. Ya’ll at least 3 of these scenes involved being up against a wall. That might work when you’ve got almost a foot of height difference and almost 100lbs weight difference. I can suspend my disbelief due to their athletic prowess.

I also want to shout out her relationship with Ryan. What a great example of friends with benefits. Those kinds of relationships can be really empowering, and just a lot of fun. You get sex from someone you are comfortable with, and in this case there’s a clear line of romance that they don’t feel for each other. They also support each other when they pursue actual romantic partners.

Favorite Lines:

Moments for consent are always a plus

“I don’t joke about consent, Anastasia,” Chapter 9  Nor should you! I appreciated the pause in this moment for him to check. It’s easy to get carried away and go farther than you are ready for. “Can I?” Chapter 15 Don’t assume every guy wants a blow job! :) “Do you want me to fuck you, Anastasia?” Chapter 15 Keep it coming!

“I’m waiting for you to move your ass over here and sit on face, Anastasia. What does it look like I’m doing?” Chapter 18 That made me laugh out loud!

“I don’t want to let her go, but I have to because, as unbelievable as coming insider her is, it’s messy and kind of ruins the moment.” Chapter 32 Thank you! You have to deal with he wet spot!!!!

“It’s makes me feel jolly when I do it.” Chapter 39 What a fucking response!!!!

Least Favorite Lines:

“Grey, obviously, because Nathan Hawkins is a man who was most definitely written by a woman.” Chapter 47 This bugged me because A) I don’t get the great sweatpants thing B) it felt like Hannah Grace was patting herself on the back

Final Thoughts:

I thought this book was a BLAST! Until the ending. They had a really great conversation about how Stassie wanted to adopt because she was adopted, and then they get whoopsie pregnant…No thank you. That’s not a requirement for my HEA. Especially when it feels like it goes against what the MC wanted. I appreciated the conversation about Stassie’s relationship with food and food control. It was nice to see that progress for her. Aaron was a fucking tool, and while I believe it took her too long to get rid of that Side plot piece, it felt annoyingly realistic.

Spice Level: 4/5

Kinks Explored: Vanilla. But it was great to show that vanilla people like to bone too.

Voices Heard: Only one side character of significance is not white.

Did I like it? It’s a solid spicy hockey romance.