Off Sides - Bennett, Sawyer

Romance,  New Adult, Contemporary
4 out of 5 stars
Kindle 173 pages

 Ryan Burnham is the privileged son of a U.S. Congressman and captain of his university’s hockey team. While he is on the verge of fulfilling his dreams to play in the NHL, his parents want him on a different course. One he is expected to accept for the sake of his family’s public image.

Forced her to abandon her music career after the heart breaking death of her parents, Danny Cross exists on the opposite side of the tracks from Ryan. She is struggling to make her own way, working two jobs, attending college part time and volunteering in a homeless shelter. She is on a mission to build her own success.

With a chance meeting, their vastly different worlds collide, causing each to evaluate whether they are truly on the correct path to self-fulfillment and happiness. Can their relationship survive? Particularly when others are against them every step of the way. A lot can happen in just ten short days... (From Goodreads)

This was a quick read and a pretty good story. It's a typical New Adult, where the female lead has fallen on hard times due to the untimely death of her parents. Our heroine though breaks the mold of the typical NA whiny and weak virgin. While a virgin, Danny is certainly no wimp. In the first few pages she puts a snobby rich girl in her place by dishing out some philosophical stuff.

Such a refreshing change to see the female lead so strong not only at the beginning of the book, but also by the end. She wants to do things on her own and has trouble accepting help from others.

Danny works as a waitress at the diner Ryan and his friends decide to stop at after a night of partying. What was refreshing about this was that Ryan was attracted to her wit and brain first rather then Danny's looks.

There's the common feature among many NA series where the male character has lots of money and Offsides is no exception. Ryans parents are in politics and are only concerned about the family image and making sure that Ryan has a suitable woman in his life, one that would improve their image.

Ryan could care less that Danny doesn't have money or isn't from his social circle, although it worries Danny a bit. She gets harassed for not being rich and for working in a diner. His mother on the other hand detests Danny and goes to great lengths to make sure she feels miserable and tries to make life difficult for both Ryan and Danny.

The hockey aspect of the novel was cool and different. The author wonderfully incorporated the sport into the book, which was also riddled with angst, some steamy scenes and even some humor.

The ending was really abrupt, but everything wrapped up pretty nicely. But the author tells us that we haven't seem the last of Danny and Ryan for which I'm quite happy about. The characters were pleasant and the writing was good.