Title: ⟫ Soft Hands (The Sin Bin : West Coast Book #2)
Author: ⟫ E.M. Lindsey
Rating: ⟫ 3.5/5
Blurb: ⟫ There are a few things Nolan Ouellet has come to accept about himself.

One: that his future with the NHL was irrevocably destroyed thanks to his reckless actions as a teenager destroying his knee.

Two: that he will never fall in love because the very idea of it sends his skin crawling.

Three: he will bed as many NHL players as humanly possible before he retires his game.

And four: he will never apologize for who he is and what he wants.

Then two men come barreling into his life and turn everything he knows upside down.

He still won’t play for the NHL, and he still won’t change who he is because he’s fought too long and too hard to accept his identity. But suddenly his future is starting to look a little different than he originally planned.

And that scares the absolute hell out of him.

When he met Marko Rudenko and Luka Wagner—two veterans of the Denver Huskies—they were supposed to be a game, just like everyone else. But now all he can think about is how to keep them around without compromising the person he’s become and ruining the love Marko and Luka have for each other.

Soft Hands is the third book in the Sin Bin: West Coast series which can be enjoyed on its own but is best read in order. Soft Hands features a goalie with a hard outer shell and soft marshmallow insides, a confused alternate captain who just wants to give up a little control, and a former NHL prospect who knows who he is, but maybe not what he needs. Soft Hands contains aromantic acceptance, no cheating, plenty of love and communication, and as always, a happily ever after.

Review: ⟫ I don’t think I’ve ever read something about an aromantic lead before so I was really interested in how this was going to play out. I liked the idea of no cheating and a lot of acceptance, so was happily in for the ride.

Unfortunately, this story didn’t really work for me – maybe the mood I was in? I just found myself feeling like so much of the angst and hand-wringing could have been avoided if the three of them had simply sat down and talked. Marko and Luka, for example, appear to have been together for quite some time but have never defined their relationship. That seemed odd to me – I understand a friends with benefits thing that lasts a few months maybe, but years?

Nolan made a bit more sense to me – historically, he’s not had much luck with people accepting him for the way he is or understanding what he means when he says he can love but he doesn’t fall in love. The attraction to Luka and Marko made sense, and I could also understand him not wanting to step on what they were building together. But, again, there seemed to be a lot of back and forth, with the three of them taking one step forward and then avoiding each other for weeks at a time. It felt like something that a teenager might do, not grown men.

The camboy thing was extremely hot – like sizzling – and I really enjoyed the scenes where Luka/Marko were together watching Nolan. But the scenes between the three of them together felt almost fade to black almost in their heat rating – I guess I wanted to see more of their dynamic in the bedroom and how things worked out there.

This was an enjoyable read, although there was some backstory I seemed to be missing with the character of Zane? I’ll happily look for more from this author and would say this is worth a read as long as you go into it accepting that miscommunication or lack of communication seems to be the words of the day.

I received an ARC from GRR.