My first RG book, and I decided to start from the very beginning of the Chinooks series, and now I have to read them all, right away! In fact, I plan to read all her books very soon! I love sports romances, I think it started with SEP's Chicago Stars series, but this is my first Hockey one, and I love it! This was her first book ever published I think, and it does have a few quirks that I think could have been a little better, or some smoothing out with the flow in some parts, but overall they were very easy for me to overlook because I really liked everything else going on.
A few things I'd have liked to seen:
* Instead of going all the way back to 1976, and then to 1989, maybe smacking them together somehow, as in a flashback or a memory. I think it would have accomplished the same thing in fewer pages and been a little less heartbreaking. The way it is now I start out feeling sorry for Georgie, it's just personal, but I don't like to start out pitying my main characters. Also, we meet Mae for a brief second in the 1989 flashback, I know Ray died before that, but I wish we could have met him too, just for a brief second too, maybe in the 1976 flashback, who knows?
* I liked John, really I did, but he didn't seem quite there for me. I was looking for a little more to him throughout the book. Not until he was holding on with baited breath wanting Lexie to call him Daddy did I really feel anything but simple interest in him. But after that, not much again until he called Georgie/Lexie from Detroit did I really feel any emotion or depth from him. I don't know if that was the purpose, if he was sort of a shell since Toby's death, and only came alive with Lexie and Georgie, but I wanted him to be a little more . . . something. I can't put my finger on it, I'll have to think about it for a while.
* In the 1989 flashback, maybe just a little more time, like finding out she was pregant, how the first days in the catering business went, that sort of thing, but not having it didn't detract from the book, I'm just curious like that!
* A slightly longer and more informative epilogue would have been nice. I can really do without the short and sweet ones, that don't really impart any new info. We all knew they'd get married, okay, we didn't know they'd honeymoon in Hawaii, but give me a bigger glimpse into their everyday life, and take me a little further out than a month, I'd like at least 6 months or so.
* The whole resolution with Virgil at the end seemed a little anti-climatic, but John is going to make him pay for a good second-line enforcer (whatever that is!), so I guess it's not all bad!
Overall, this was great! RG has a great writing style, quirky characters (who wouldn't love a 6-year old who slathers herself in goop!) and even though I wasn't crazy about the premise (hidden baby) I think it was really well done and I'm sure I will enjoy the rest of her books immensely, I can already tell! I'll be beginning the next one relatively soon!