Power Forward

by Wolf Specter

The closet's a tough place to be for a pro hockey player... Rising star Blair Boyer can't stand his new teammate. He's loud, arrogant, and thinks that just because he's big he can throw his weight around. But Blair has bigger problems to worry about, like trying to hide his sexual orientation from his teammates.


Separated from his pack, a lone alpha whose wolf is slowly going mad... Nikita Tarasov: brash, tattooed, Russian. He's the latest acquisition of the Seattle Breakers hockey team, but he's hiding a secret that can't get out. He's a lone wolf, an alpha separated from his pack. And that separation is driving the wolf inside him crazy.


Then Blair makes a discovery that could get him killed. Blair and Nikita butt heads at first, but it's undeniable: they have incredible chemistry on the ice. And maybe off it, too. Until Blair accidentally stumbles over Nikita's secret one night. Now the man he was determined to ignore holds Blair's life in his claws.

As the attraction between them slowly develops and sizzles, Blair has a lot to worry about: there's a reporter sniffing around, his werewolf teammate might murder him, and he has to hide his entire life from his team. Sooner or later it's all going to come crashing down...

Power Forward is a 45,000 word stand-alone short novel with NO CLIFFHANGER. Contains plenty of hard-hitting hockey action and steamy scenes between an alpha wolf shifter and his chosen mate.

Genres: M M Romance, Romance, Paranormal, Sports, Contemporary, Hockey, LGBT

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 6, 2016

About the author

Growing up, Wolf believed there was a ghost in his attic. To this day, he still believes that ghost creeps out of the shadows from time to time. He wishes it would say hello.

Wolf's stories explore the complicated, sensual bonds between men. There are always happy endings just as there is always a dash of otherworldly delight.

His work is exclusive to Amazon.

Reviews

[Gigi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the whole book. This was a first-time author for me, but the thought of Hockey! and Shifters! together in one book had me intrigued enough to read it without GR friend's reviews.



It was mildly interesting. A big, grouchy wolf shifter named Nikita and a short hockey player named Blair. Blair sees himself as a caregiver, someone who needs to fix everyone else's problems. These two were getting to know each other, Blair, with his caretaker gene, watching out for Nikita while he goes on his necessary wolf runs and both of them tearing up the ice as a great scoring team.

Nikita is gruff for the entire book. No warmth or compassion. No words of thanks for what Blair is doing. And just when things start to get interesting...

Their first and ONLY sexual encounter takes place in the middle of the night in a forest next to a tree. Nikita fucks Blair doggy style in the open air. "It's the way my people do it." And this is 90%. Yes, you heard me, 90%.



Oh, and then? THE BOOK ENDS! There is a little talk of these two coming out as a couple with their team captain, but that was it. Finished!

According to the blurb:

Power Forward is a 45,000 word stand-alone short novel with NO CLIFFHANGER.

So, apparently, that's it. End of story.



So, so disappointing. This could have actually been a really interesting book. If Nikita would have expressed some emotions and the book explained the weird bond the two men had, I would have really like this one.



Cannot recommended.



This review is also posted at Gay Book Reviews

[Daesy · Rating 3 out of 5]

**grm**

When I started reading this book, I was expecting some talk about mates, since one of the MCs is an alpha werewolf, or at least some explanation about the shifters world or more background story involving wolves and other shifters, but what I got was a book full of hockey. Don't get me wrong I like this sport, but I don't live to read about all the single things that happen in an hockey team.....
I wanted to read about mates, and mating and claims and MINE, but sadly none of that happened, or to better say nothing is really explained, and maybe some words make us think that our MCs are destined mates, since their attraction is too strong and Nik's wolf doesn't want to kill Blair, but they don't have a real talk and there is no coming out to the team or friends and half of the book was about Blair's fear of rejection if his friends/teammates found out he was hiding the fact that he was gay. Blair tells us that he isn't ashamed of being gay, but sometimes it didn't feel that way at all and Nik was right in getting pissed. The book may end with them having sex and Nik giving him what it seems to be a claiming bite, but when Blair asks him if the legend about wolves claiming their mates are real, the other replies that are only legends....so I don't really know what to think....It was a turn off....
Anyway I rated it 3 starts, bcs there were worst books I read in the past that really deserved 2 stars and this wasn't one of them. Still I believe that the author should have used more pages and explained some things.

[Taya:) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like it. It wasn't a hardship to read it. It was somewhere in the middle. But nothing pop off till late in the book. It ended in a summary of information. Like when voice over comes on in the end of the movie to tell you what happened to the couple. You don't actually get to experience the reaction. You don't get to see them function as a couple. I love soap operas and the best part was the reaction to the secret getting out. How is this person going to react when they found out the truth? You been building on it. I wouldn't mind a sequel to this book or companion novel with Nikita as the narrator. I never understood Nik's motivation to choose Blair or to never mention being gay wasn't a secret to him. Just when you think of it going somewhere BOOM interruption. Overall it was bad, just direction of the story didn't move me.

[Sanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75-4

[Sunshine Buze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would recommend

I enjoyed the overall story and even how the author wrote it. The only thing that bothered me that kept me from immersing myself in the stories was the lack of transition between scenes. I felt like it read a little like a play where it's this location *scene* instead of it flowing in a narration. It also surprised me when I felt like we were still in the buildup phase and I was at 70%, which made it feel a little rushed at the end. I think this author is going to improve over time but I still enjoyed the story enough to recommend.

[inaword · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a word: Maybe read the thing. On the whole, this isn’t a bad story. I just had a hard time really getting into it. Blair and Nikita are pro NHL hockey players playing for the same team. They both have secrets: Blair is gay, and Nikita is a werewolf. And somehow this story had a hard time keeping my attention. Most of the story is centered around Blair finding out that Nikita is a werewolf, trying to keep him ‘in line’ so that Nikita can have private werewolf time without anyone finding out, and then suddenly Blair and Nikita are interested in each other. In between that going on there are some hockey games. I really didn’t buy the romance here. Blair and Nikita didn’t really spend a whole lot of down time together, and there’s really only one or two scenes where they try to bond. Really, most of the time what we get is Blair talking about trying to keep tabs on Nikita while also constantly worried that he’s going to get mauled to death for one wrong move. Speaking of mauling, Nikita’s werewolf-ness is not at all explained. It’s just a thing he does, and it’s not made entirely clear about how in control Nikita is of his werewolf side because the whole story is in Blair’s point of view and he knows about as much as we do. There is basically no world-building here. What there is, though, is quite a bit of hockey. There are long passages that are just play-by-plays of some of the games Blair plays. That tended to get very boring because I’m not a huge fan of hockey and reading about actual sports games isn’t interesting to me. Also the ending was kind of meh. Just some talk about coming out to the team and general public, but nothing much beyond that. Also no ‘I love yous’, which I guess was fine with me because I wasn’t really feeling the romance anyway.

[read the full post at In A Word]

[Verdant · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my first book on the author. I'm not into shifters thing, but something in the blurb held promise of a nice story.

Turns out to be a disappointment. Even if I didn't set out with high standards.

I don't have issues with Nikita being Mysterious at all. It adds layer to the wolf in question. Being grumpy, terse and unfriendly. That is Until Blair. And only to him did he felt comfy enough.
Not that he shares a lot of things to him either, But agreeing to do look out for him.
Blair, Offered friendship to him, and maybe the only one who did after discovering his secret.

If only their friendship had a chance to develop when the book is not ending.

The book just spends half of time discussing hockey which to be fair is nice even if i don't understand the game. That is a waste of space in terms of getting to know stuff. I would have thought they get to spend time more apart from their excursions at night.

There are Unanswered questions to me.
Are they even a couple to think of coming out or it was just the part of 'faking' of the relationship to hide Nikita being a wolf. Is Nikita opening to Blair in terms of his pack. ?

I say it has a lot of Cliffhangers. It would be fine if there would be part 2. But seeing as it is a stand-alone, Well, a No no to me. It Feels a HFN and not a HEA ending.

Could have been Better.

[April · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt fairly derivative, and honestly the plot-line felt very forced. I think the werewolf part of the story definitely suffered because of the hockey part of the story. I didn't feel like either part was particularly well-developed, and particularly frustrating for me was that a large part of the action takes place in Edmonton--indeed the author describes Edmonton as much or more than any other location in the novel--but it doesn't remotely resemble actual Edmonton. The idea that Blair would be able to swim across the North Saskatchewan River in late fall is not realistic, especially considering that the river is already icing at that time.

I also felt that the conclusion to this was way too rushed. They'd barely gotten together when they were breaking up and then Nikita was disappearing. All in all, I felt like this would have benefited from taking more time to tell the story, and from focusing more on the werewolf angle, which was largely ignored until it was convenient.

[Krummi í klettagjá · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the characters well enough. Rupert Lennox did seem like a very unneccassery character though.
I thought that the ending was very hasty and hurried, as if the author was on a deadline and decided to just write the gist of what had happened.
I was very disappointed that I didn't get to know how the coming out would go. I was looking forward to reading the team-mates' reaction, so it was a bit of a let-down.
Bearing in mind that this is a hockey book, I thought that the beginning had way too much detailed hockey in it, especially concerning that the rest of the book barely had any hockey at all.
All in all: hurried ending, good characters, all-right relationship, not very well-written, all right plot but not deep.
1.4 stars

[Amanda Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Went in with high hopes and I feel like it just didn't hit its mark. I didn't connect with EITHER of the MCs but especially Nik. Maybe it had to do with only having Blair's POV resulted in that but I still never connected. They finally get together then I feel like everything was rush in order to finish the book. Then it just...ended. I kept looking at my kindle thinking I missed something. Just didn't work for me.

[Scott McQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It was not exactly what I expected, but it was damn good regardless. The werewolf aspect is really an afterthought at times and not as explored as it could be. However the relationship aspect is pretty damn good. Watching the MCs bond as teammates and lovers. All in all, a time well spent.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my usual but good

I don't normally read shifter stories but the blurb and the cover caught my eye. Quiet stoic Russians who play hockey is a good combo. If you want insta sex it's not here and low key. I am hoping there is a follow up since the ending was a bit abrupt. I would like more back story and see how they move forward into the next chapter of their hockey life

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really sure what to say about this book. I liked parts of it other parts not so much. I did like how Blair thought he needed to protect and care for Nikita. Nikita has a bigger secret that Blair was cool with. The balance in this book just didn't work well for me. And Rupert just didn't fit at all. I like this author very much just this book wasn't for me.

[Riah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dud

That was the worst wolf specter book I've ever read. This wasn't a romance and it ended with no resolution. This was a bromance with one lay at 80% in and one sided love that was pretty pitiful.

[Debby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book.

This was a sweet story. The characters struggle to cope with their feeling for each other while hiding in plain sight was great. The background of hockey and throwing in the paranormal angle made it even better.

[Lisa Foulke · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I saw this book had both hockey and a shifter, I had to check it out. It's a light read with some good hockey action, and it also deals with keeping secrets — whether it's you're gay or you're also a wolf.

[Darlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what another great book by Specter. A werewolf that's a hockey player, and a human that helps him out when he needs to take care of his wolf.

What a great team they make on and off the ice. A wonderful growing romance that finally blooms at the end and no cliffhangers!

[Tailtiu]

Part of the Taking Chances Anthology.

[jules0623 · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hockey and shifters!! What's there not to love! This was another great story by Wolfe.