Overnight Sensation (Brooklyn Bruisers #5) by Sarina Bowen

Overnight Sensation book coverOf course I had to pick up this recently-released title from my favorite author. Due to life restrictions, I wasn’t able to actually read it until this past week, but I ate it right up.

This one is about Jason Castro, a relatively new addition to the Brooklyn Bruisers hockey team, but one who made quite a splash the previous season (where he was dubbed an “overnight sensation”). But now the coach has moved him from left wing to right wing and he’s struggling to adjust to the new position.

Heidi Pepper is the new intern for the team. She’s also the daughter of the NHL commissioner, a very rich man based in Nashville, though he lives mostly in NYC. She’s a nice southern girl who knows all the right etiquette from her charm school days. She was at Bryn Mawr College for the past three years but has decided not to return, which has enraged her father. He intervenes in her internship so that she’s placed on a rotating schedule of jobs, working the concession stand, being an Ice Girl, being a valet, and driving the Zamboni (resurfacing the ice).

But before we learn most of that, we get the opening scenario, which is Heidi and Jason and a bunch of other guys from the team having a good time at the bar. We do learn that the two of them have been making eyes at each other for a while, and Heidi has decided that this is the night she’s going to make a move. They flirt all night but then she has just a little too much tequila and has to sleep it off—in his apartment because she refuses to tell him where she lives.

After a picture of them from that night circulates, her father tells Jason to stay away from Heidi. Heidi’s humiliated about all of this, of course, but she does what she can to maintain some sense of dignity. But things get even worse when she gets swindled trying to get her first apartment. She has nowhere to go but back to her dad’s condo, and she doesn’t want to do that, so she ends up sleeping on Jason’s and Silas’s couch. She’s still trying to convince Jason she’s up for a hookup despite his “one-and-done” rule, but he’s resistant because it would make things awkward afterward.

Overall, this is another winner from Bowen. It’s not her sexiest book but it’s still got the scenes you’d expect. Jason is pretty likable even though he has been a player—his backstory makes his approach to things make some sense. And Heidi’s a lot of fun. She’s very energetic and does bold things all the time.

If you’re a Bowen fan, you won’t want to miss this one.