Offside

Power Play #5

by Chris Savage

He's the most talented rookie in the draft. He's also the only person on the team who hasn't figured out who he is yet.

Jamie Kowalski was drafted 4th overall. His skating speed is generational. His shot release is the fastest in his class. His post-game interviews are three words long because every additional word is a risk, and the thing he's risking is the feeling he can't name, the search he can't type, the question he can't finish.

He moved to Atlanta expecting to play hockey. He didn't expect the biscotti in his locker stall. The Russian who said the walls are optional. The enforcer who brought bread and said the alone part is what kills you. The team that loves each other openly and the four couples who make it look easy and the nineteen-year-old in the corner booth with a Sprite who is watching all of it and wondering how anyone gets from here to there.

He didn't expect the journalist.

Declan Osei covers the Atlanta Reapers for the AJC. He's spent three years earning this beat. He's the reporter players trust, the writer whose features make his editor call instead of email, the man who wears his glasses like armor because the glasses keep the world at the distance the job requires.

Then the rookie walks into a hallway and says four words about a Mik Volkov quote and Declan's professional distance starts to crack.

A journalist can't fall for a source. A source can't fall for the man who covers him. The line exists to protect the work, and the work is everything Declan built, and the building took three years and cost a thousand unanswered emails and the line is the line is the line.

Until it isn't.

Until a boy who has never kissed anyone he wanted to kiss meets a man who sees the thing underneath the thing. Until the search bar fills with eleven words at 2 AM and the answer changes everything. Until the press box glass that separates watching from wanting becomes the only barrier left, and the barrier has to break, and the breaking will cost one of them a career and give both of them a life.

Offside is a rookie/journalist MM hockey romance with a 4th-overall pick who can't stop watching, a beat writer who can't stop seeing, biscotti as a love language, a sister who already knew, a search bar that changes everything, and an HEA that proves the walls were always optional.

Power Play Book Five. Dual POV. Standalone. No cliffhanger. KU enrolled.

Genres: Hockey

187 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2026

Reviews

[Marion · Rating 1 out of 5]

We aren’t able to count properly

Ugh this book was definitely not my favorite in the series. It is a lot slower than the others. There is often a mention of how many words were used when someone spoke, which I suspect is because one of the main characters is a journalist. The annoying thing, though, is that the count is never correct! Please edit the text.

[Cecilie Birkshøj · Rating 1 out of 5]

The language is getting very repetitive at this point

[Shelle Pennington · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series so very much.
The prose, again, is beautiful.
The feelings jump off the page.
They jump straight to the part of your soul you did not realize needed to hear the words.
And then you are forced to sit with it.

[Carole Herbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely read

This is my favorite book of the series so far. The emotional depth of the story is exceptional and the timeline is smooth.

[Dark Side of the Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will read the last one book in the series, but this one was boring and repetitive.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this series