Revolve by Bal Khabra
Rating: 
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
Surprise, this is the book I read first of the series but it is actually the third one which comes to show one of the strengths of this series, that each book is in itself a standalone despite making references to what has happened in the previous ones (since the partners are "new" to the team they won't have context so this is handled nicely o the reader gets context without feeling like overexposure). The reason I chose this book was because it wasn't just hockey but it had artistic skating. But why was that relevant? Because for part of my teenage years I start with artistic roller skating and then moved to inline hockey (as I couldn't find a partner and the coach also coached hockey). And of course because both where done on ice at official levels, I would try to skate loads in ice rinks when I could afford it. So I came at Revolve with cautious hopes, could it talk about two things I loved deeply and also give me a good romance? The answer was yes. So much that I would end up really liking the whole series and going back to the other books. Revolve follows Sierra Romanova who had an accident during a competiton on the ice and that left her with panic attacks when she enters the rink, but she wants to reclaim what that accident took from her and prove that she can do it. But her previous partner has a new partner and no one seems to want to partner up with her, and it's too late in the season... Enter stage (rink) left, Dylan Donovan, playboy hockey player and the bad boy from the team, who goads her back into skating and proving him wrong. And maybe he also has something to prove as he is kicked out of the team for his chaos. Hockey is his dream and he wanted to follow Aiden and Elias, so he needs to win his way back and maybe skating with Sierra will help this happen. Dylan seems to just love pushing Sierra's buttons but then he starts caring and at the same time, it is one thing to push her buttons and another to let her suffer a panic attack, for which he seems well versed in handling, whcih shocks Sierra. And as Sierra slowly tackles her panic attacks, her fear and starts becoming once again a star in skating, Dylan also has to face his own reasons for being so reckless and for acting out so much. I enjoyed both the hockey and the figure skating, and both Sierra's and Dylan's story was really sweet and chaotic (Dylan reminded me a bit of my current partner, he seems super chaotic and feisty but is very sweet and caring at his core, and Sierra was a bit like myself in some ways). This is also the hardest review to write becuase I read the book the longest ago so I remember less specifics and the ones I do are pretty much plot spoilers I'd like to avoid since they were important to the story, but I will say that Sierr'as previous partner gets his comeuppance given he was the reason she had her accident. And their epilogue to me was actually the sweetest of them all. So I hope you get to love this series and enjoy it, while I go dive into Embrace and get a review ready probably in a few weeks.