About a year ago, I wrote a mini-essay on my tumblr with the title "Hockey Romances. Why?". I cross-posted it here a few months later when I got around to making this site. To this day, it remains my most popular post on either platform. At the time, I was about two months into medical leave during pregnancy and mainlining M/M romances since I was between writing projects myself, having finished the first draft of Second Chance.
I thought, oh well, I've thought about why I am so obsessed with this genre and written it out, and I even wrote a little 10k football story for a friend for Christmas to exorcise the sports romance bug (because I live in Germany, so I actually know things about football, as opposed to hockey). Surely this will be out of my system soon.
(Highly recommend Ari Baran if you want interesting themes, character growth and good hockey knowledge. Highly recommend Brigham Vaughn if you want fun, fluffy, trope-y goodness. Highly recommend Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James if you want a mix of fun, fluffy and good hockey knowledge. Highly recommend Avon Gale if you don't want to read about only rich and successful players. Highly recommend Scoreless Game by Anna Zabo and L.A. Witt if you want to cry a lot.)
Fast forward to a year later and it is not, in fact, out of my system. I wake up in the morning and check the game results from last night's hockey games (not to tell on myself but I find myself rooting for Toronto and Edmonton more and more even though I think Dallas could win this year, but also I am still an idiot about sports so who knows). Every time I catch wind of a new hockey romance, I order it, even though a lot of them have ended up being not quite what I wanted.
In a turn of events so predictable I should have seen it coming but somehow didn't, in late August I started toying with the idea of writing my own hockey romance when I couldn't find new reading material. By then I had watched tons of highlights and post-game interviews and felt as if I actually understood the game (watching actual full-length games while living in Germany and having a six month old baby is difficult for reasons like time zones and time in general being a vortex. Someday we will all be able to sit still for long enough. I have faith.)
Shortly after, I wrote a 75k draft in two weeks, typing away on my tablet in five minute increments while hanging out in my son's room listening to the toy elephant that plays the same three songs over and over again. Surely, I thought, this will finally eradicate the hockey demon within me.
By the time I had finished the first draft, I had the plots for three further books in the series outlined.
All this to say, "Two for Holding", the first book in the Minor Penalties series, is now under contract with NineStar Press and will be published at some point in the next year or so. I put Maple Leafs merch on my Christmas wishlist (would have gone for a Draisaitl jersey tbh but the Oilers colors are not for me). I have accepted that this is just who I am now. You can find more information about "Two for Holding" in the "Books" section of my website and further updates on Instagram and Tumblr, because I am constitutionally incapable of shutting up about this.
Hockey romances. I don't know why, but I have accepted my fate.
(Here is my aptly titled writing playlist for your pleasure)
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