Though my 100th note seems like a huge achievement, I want to point out that I only started the note series in 2019, 10 years after I started my blog. I still want to give it some attention, and as SuperLibrarian Wendy’s TBR Challenge theme for June is Pride, I am going to discuss one of Rachel Reid’s lesser known books The Shots You Take released in 2025. Once again, I reveal all, there are spoilers galore. If you want no surprises, do not keep reading.
Rachel Reid’s The Shots You Take
A sweet and sexy hockey romance about two ex-teammates and former best friends with benefits who are about to discover whether you can ever really have a second chance. From the New York Times bestselling author of the Heated Rivalry, Rachel Reid.
After moving back to his hometown ten years ago, Riley Tuck thought he had left his major league hockey career—and his broken heart—far behind. But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, it brings ex-teammate and former best friend with benefits Adam Sheppard back into his life.
Coming to the small town of Avery River, Nova Scotia, might have been a mistake. Adam’s not sure he’ll ever win back Riley’s trust after the way they left things—and the attention he’s getting as a huge hockey star isn’t exactly helping. Yet the chemistry that crackles between them is undeniable, even now.
As Adam helps Riley navigate his grief, long-buried feelings start to resurface. But they’ll have to square off with their complicated past if they’re going to have a real shot at a new beginning.
After waiting 3 months on my library holds queue, this book came through for me on Monday and I accidently read it in the one day.
I have no notes.
No notes at all.
I was so far lost reading through the this page-turner novel, a second-chance at love romance for former best-friends and superstar hockey players Riley and Adam. The novel starts at the funeral of Riley’s beloved father who has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. Riley is wracked with grief in the church where he sees Adam turn up to attend the funeral service. As the story unfolds, we find out that Riley and Adam were drafted together as young (and dumb and poorly equipped to deal with life) adults who lived in a shared apartment together while they played hockey in Toronto. In their third(?)/fourth(?) year of playing, Adam gets drunk enough to start having sex with (gay) Riley who has been deeply in love with him for a long time. None of these are spoilers as they are revealed early in the story, as is the unsurprising denial of love from Adam who continues to claim to be straight, who gets married and has children with (his now ex-wife) Maggie. Newly divorced and out Adam is finally ready to court Riley, but Riley had left playing professional hockey 12 years earlier, devastated by Adam’s rejection, devastated by their actions after a cup win, devastated enough to move to another team, and so devastated that he spiralled into harmful and damaging mental health behaviour. Riley left hockey and returned home to recover, and Adam’s reappearance unwillingly brings all the memories and emotions to the fore.
This story examines the deep grief of losing a beloved parent who is your key supporter when life got tough. Riley is finally in a good and healthy lifestyle when he gets the double whammy of his father dying and Adam returning into his life. There is a devastating moment in the story where Riley is so overwhelmed by his emotions, unable to cope with his father’s loss, unable to cope with Adam in his life, that he starts howling, he sinks into his grief, and I am openly crying. Tears coursing down my face.
As I said. No notes.
This is the most abject moment. From here, each day is a struggle to a better way of coping. Each day brings our two protagonists closer to their inevitable happily ever after. It is a romance after all. Right at the end, Adam who is recovering from hockey injury surgery says to Riley that “hockey makes us into liars” – liars about their sexuality, liars about their physical state, liars about their mental state. And it isn’t until after all the sports and all the fame and into retirement that these sportsmen are forced to grapple with the hard truth of how professional sports extracts more from their bodies, their minds, their relationships, their whole integral way of being than they probably expected when they were handed lucrative contracts in their youth.
I feel that “hockey makes us into liars” is the underpinning premise for all of Rachel Reid’s novels. I have read and loved them all (well maybe not Common Goal). I loved The Shots You Take as it was reading about two adults renegotiating their lives and finally taking the chance to make reparations. Reid’s deep characterisation just tore me apart. I loved this book which 3 days after I finished it, I am already rereading. I highly recommend it.
Metadata
My metadata: age, angsty, beach, boys, canada, conformity, contemporary, countryside, dads, dancing, date-night, depression, divorced, fear, friends-to-lovers, friendship, gazillionaire, grief, growing-up, hockey, infidelity, kindness, kiss, knew-each-other-years-ago, lgbtq, loneliness,love, m-m, made-me-cry, men, parents, queer, romance,sadness, same-sex, sex, stars, still-waters-run-deep, trust
My local library’s metadata: Fiction, Literature, Romance LGBTQIA+ (Fiction)
Seriously, it is such base level subject descriptors from my library, that I am gritting my teeth. Where is Canada? Where is Hockey? Where is Mental Health? Where are soooo many other possible descriptors. I am disappointed.
I have lots of notes.
