By Sorry for the temporary hiatus, I’ve been editing. If anyone has tips on how to find a literary agent or knows one, please feel free to send them my way.
I have also been reading a lot and it has been a while since I have done a series review. The Maple Hills series is a set of stand alone romance that are interconnected mainly through characters and now that this last book is out and I have read it (twice) I can proceed with a review. By stand alone series I mean that you don’t have to read all of them in order but there is a bigger story overall if you do. As a general heads up these are open door adult romances, that being said they aren’t smut.
Synopsis:
Anastasia Allen has worked her entire life for a shot at Team USA. It looks like everything is going according to plan when she gets a full scholarship to the University of California, Maple Hills, and lands a place on their competitive figure skating team.
Nothing will stand in her way, not even the captain of the hockey team, Nate Hawkins.
Nate’s focus as team captain is on keeping his team on the ice. Which is tricky when a facilities mishap means they are forced to share a rink with the figure skating team—including Anastasia, who clearly can’t stand him.
But when Anastasia’s skating partner faces an uncertain future, she may have to look to Nate to take her shot.
Sparks fly, but Anastasia isn’t worried . . . because she could never like a hockey player, right?
Synopsis:
The latest in the Maple Hills series follows two summer camp counselors who reconnect after a sizzling one-night stand.
Maple Hills students Russ Callaghan and Aurora Roberts cross paths at a party celebrating the end of the academic year, where a drinking game results in them having a passionate one-night stand. Never one to overstay her welcome (or expect much from a man), Aurora slips away before Russ even has the chance to ask for her full name.
Imagine their surprise when they bump into each other on the first day of the summer camp where they are both counselors, hoping to escape their complicated home lives by spending the summer working. Russ hopes if he gets far enough away from Maple Hills, he can avoid dealing with the repercussions of his father’s gambling addiction, while Aurora is tired of craving attention from everyone around her, and wants to go back to the last place she truly felt at home.
Russ knows breaking the camp’s strict “no staff fraternizing” rule will have him heading back to Maple Hills before the summer is over, but unfortunately for him, Aurora has never been very good at caring about the rules. Will the two learn to peacefully coexist? Or did their one night together start a fire they can’t put out?
Synopsis:
The third in the New York Times bestselling Maple Hills series follows fan-favorite Henry and a bookish fellow student who come up with a plan to help them both overcome their respective challenges in a difficult year.
When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.
Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.
They just need to stick to their rule book.
Oh, and not fall in love.
These books aren’t for everyone. I’m biased, I like romance novel and yes, all three of these books end happily ever after adult romances. That being said, I picked this series for a review because the author looks at real issues that create conflict between people and does it well. Some of these are the fact that in Icebreaker Anastasia has anxiety and feels like she doesn’t have control over anything. In Wildfire both Aurora and Russ have different but legitimate issues with their parents that created trauma that they have to work through as adults. In Daydream Henry is a wonderful example of a neurodivergent character.
This series is also a good representation of a close nit friend groups that is not perfect. People move away, people get busy, they get distracted by new romantic relationships and these books show that yes, people have to put in the work to maintain friendships. But the series also shows that friends can mean well and still mess up. For example in Daydream, Henry is mentally overstimulated, his friends try to rally around him to help when what he really needs is quiet.
All-in-all these are easy reads but they have fun plots with nothing too high-stake. I suggest these books for fans of hockey romances, for fans of college romances, and for fans of the romance genre in general. Happy reading.
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