Book Review: Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

‘Icebreaker’ by Hannah Grace was published in 2022. It was Grace’s debut novel. The story is a great introduction to her Maple Hills Series, a hockey romance series, which seemed to catapult hockey to the precipice of sports romance.

I am very late to the game when it comes to this book, and I regret that immensely, because wow. Hannah Grace wrote an amazing story with well-realised, confident, and powerful characters. I loved the dynamics among them and how everyone interacted amongst themselves. The tropes were fantastic and right up my street, with forced-proximity at the helm.

This story follows Anastasia Allen and Nathan Hawkins, college-level athletes, Anastasia is a confident and powerful figure skater with her eyes on the US Olympic team, and Nate is the captain of the hockey team.

When circumstances beyond either student’s control force the Maple Hills figure skating team and ice hockey team to have to share a single ice rink for the foreseeable future, Nate and Stassie’s lives are thrust together at breakneck speed. While Stassie was adamant she wouldn’t come to like the Maple Hills hockey team, she found her frosty exterior melting away when surrounded by the charismatic big personalities of the team. Starting with Henry, an incredibly likeable supporting character, and ending with Nate.

I loved this story. Grace has a great command of character and I loved how sex-positive and communicative the characters were. Stassie begins the story with a healthy friends-with-benefits relationship with Ryan, the captain of the basketball team, and the way that Stassie and Ryan and later Stassie and Nate discuss sex and the nature of Stassie’s sex life is refreshing. There wasn’t an iota of slut shaming from her sexual partners throughout the book, and neither Ryan nor Nate expressed any disdain toward the other, or better yet, Stassie for their sex lives. It just is. I loved it. She was allowed to enjoy sex. She was allowed to be sex-positive and it was a fantastic angle to encounter from a reader’s perspective!

I also really enjoyed how Stassie and Nate became a couple; how it starts as a casual one-night thing, evolves into hooking up, and then feelings get involved. And although they slowly ease into commitment, despite Stassie having deep-rooted fears of abandonment and rejection, the humour is still there. I loved it!

I felt like the plot was incredibly immersive; having Stassie fall into the throngs of the hockey team, and befriending the boys one at a time, and watching as her friendship with a bunch of rowdy, confident, self-assured boys who owned their bullshit and acknowledged when they did wrong, prompted or otherwise, blossom, while her partnership with her skating pair implodes, was harsh and evocative. You want to have faith and trust Stassie, the people she surrounded herself with, and her decision-making skills, whilst also knowing that you agree with Nate. It was incredibly powerful.

There are so many elements of this story that I enjoyed, from normalising and destigmatising therapy to establishing the value of men expressing their emotions, and promoting a healthy relationship with food, and communication. I truly couldn’t fault any of it. But, what I loved was how, despite not being a massive fan of the married, pregnant and happily ever after ending idea, the way Grace navigated it was fantastic.

I’d definitely recommend ‘Icebreaker’! It was a fantastic introduction to hockey romance for me, and made me beyond excited to read the rest of Hannah Grace’s books!