Shenanigans (Brooklyn Bruisers 6) by Sarina Bowen-Review Tour

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 15, 2022

What I meant to do in Vegas: Let my hair down for once and celebrate winning a medal at my first women’s hockey all-stars competition.

What I actually did: Got senior prom drunk and woke up married to Brooklyn’s star winger, the great Neil Drake.

He’s the heir to a billion dollars, and I barely survived my childhood. Our friendship is based strictly only on hockey, takeout food and smack talk.

And now holy matrimony. Although we both know it can’t last, especially once his evil family gets wind of our Vegas shenanigans…

••••••

REVIEW:SHENANIGANS is the sixth full-length instalment in Sarina Bowen’s contemporary, adult BROOKLYN hockey, romance series (formerly known as the Brooklyn Bruisers)-a series that now includes the all women’s Brooklyn Bombshells hockey team. This is Brooklyn Bruisers hockey player Cornelius ‘Neil’ Drake, and Brooklyn Bombshells hockey player Charlotte ‘Charli’ Higgins’ story line. SHENANIGANS can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story lines is revealed where necessary.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Charli and Neil) SHENANIGANS follows the friends to lovers, Vegas marriage, fake relationship between Brooklyn Bruisers hockey player Cornelius ‘Neil’ Drake, and Brooklyn Bombshells hockey player Charlotte ‘Charli’ Higgins. An awards ceremony in Vegas ends with our couple, a very drunk couple, pretending to get married, only to wake up the next morning, married for real. Hoping for a quickie annulment, Neil and Charli discover that leaving Vegas was the worst thing they could do. When a paparazzi posts a picture of the couple entering a chapel, not only does the Brooklyn hockey organization begin to round up the troops, but Neil’s well-to-do family, begin to circle wagons in an attempt to protect their family holdings. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Neil and Charli, and the potential fall-out as both extended families take action, but action with varying degrees of threats and intimidation.

Neil Drake has lusted after Charli Higgins for as long as he can remember but never thought Charli saw him as boyfriend or marriage material. Charli always presented herself as not interested in the opposite $ex, disguising years of mistrust and threats at the hands of many men. When Charli draws a line in the proverbial sand with regards to their quickie marriage, Neil struggles with his growing attraction to a woman who believes she is unworthy of our hero’s love.

The relationship between Neil and Charli is a friends to lovers, fake relationship in which Charli is hoping for an immediate divorce. Targeted and threatened by both Neil’s family and her own, Charli is forced to walk away to protect the man with whom she is falling in love. Neil is quickly falling for the woman he married, a woman who stands up to protect our story line hero. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

The secondary and supporting characters cause most of the problems and issues in our couple’s lives-Silas (Superfan 3/Brooklyn Bruisers 7), Bess and Tank (Sureshot 4), the Bombshells’ coach Anton Bayer and his significant other Sylvie (Bombshells 5); Charli’s teammates Fiona, Angelica, and Samantha; her cousin Robert, and brother Dennis; Neil’s long-suffering mother Paloma Drake, his uncle Harmon, and his sister Paisley ; personal shopper Vera, and Neil’s ex Iris. The conflict resolution with Charli’s family ends rather abruptly-I was hoping for more.

SHENANIGANS is a story of family and dysfunction; secrets and lies; betrayal and vengeance, friendships, relationships, hockey and love. The character driven premise is emotional and intense ; the characters are animated, inspiring and energetic; the romance is spirited, edgy and tender.

Reading Order and Previous Reviews
Rookie Move
Hard Hitter
Pipe Dreams

Copy supplied for review

Reviewed by Sandy

Sarina Bowen is the USA Today bestselling author of steamy, angsty Contemporary Romance and New Adult fiction. She lives in the wilds of Vermont.

She is the author of The Ivy Years, an award-winning series set amid the hockey team at an elite Connecticut college. Also, the The Gravity series.

With Elle Kennedy, Sarina is the author of HIM and US.

Follow Sarina: Goodreads / Website / Twitter / Facebook