Double Pucked by Lauren Blakely

Narrated by Samantha Brentmoor, JF Harding and Robert Hatchet

1st in a related standalone series. Romcom Erotica.

I have been a HUGE Lauren Blakley fan for many years now. So much so, that at one point it seemed as though my blog was dedicated to just Lauren. I had to step back and read some other authors, so it has been a bit since I listened to a new Lauren Blakely book. Double Pucked was her first MFM book I think, and let me tell you, I love Lauren’s spice, but she rarely overwhelms the story with the sex; I love her balance. And this was HOT—I mean two men just concentrated on the woman? Yes, please.

But one of the things that I usually love about Lauren’s books is how smart and sexy they are. Something felt off in this book, almost like it was dumbed down a bit. It just felt like it was written directly for the young TikTok spicy hockey romance lovers. I mean Lauren is always writing common tropes with her unique and special take, but the dialogue seemed a bit more cringy and the characters felt more one-dimensional and tropey than any of the other Lauren Blakely books I have read.

Trina manages a bookstore (we readers love a book nerd!) and when she catches her boyfriend cheating on her, she gathers her stuff to move out and grabs the boyfriend’s VIP Hockey tickets for spite. She meets Chase and Ryker at the event. Chase and Ryker play for different teams but they have been best friends since they were in grade school. Since Trina needs a place to stay for a week, they agree on a sexy solution—they share her for that 1 week.

Ryker was gruff and grumpy and Chase was the alpha problem solver. Sharing a woman isn’t a regular thing they do, but they were both into Trina and Trina was totally into both of them. The sex scenes were hot as hell yet felt a little generic.

Likes:

Made me laugh and brought out emotion.
I liked all of the characters.
Very hot!
An adorable dog.
A great revenge on the ex.

Dislikes:

Felt like it was written directly for hockey smut booktok.
The dialogue and sex scenes sometimes felt cheesy.
This was written with a younger market in mind, but it felt forced.

The Narration:

Lauren Blakely picks the perfect narrators for her books, and I thought it was perfectly cast. Sometimes there was a need for mastering or something because I noticed sometimes the vocals just didn’t match, almost like they were moving around the microphone a little. I did love the duet-style narration.

The Down & Dirty:

Double Pucked by Lauren Blakely was a hot M-F-M hockey romance with some light humor. I enjoyed it but I felt like it was missing a lot of Lauren’s intelligent maturity, which is the thing I love most about her writing. Lauren publishes so much and she is a fantastic marketer. I felt like Double Pucked was written to the market, and right now the market is younger women on TikTok who are into hockey smut, only Lauren isn’t that young and it felt a little cringy like it was trying too hard to be young and hip. That being said, I hold Lauren to very high standards and the average person may not see it as I did. If you are looking for a why-choose M-F-M (no swords cross) sports romance, I fully recommend Double Pucked, but if you are a Lauren Blakely devotee, you might find this a little lower on the maturity scale.