Overtime by Mari Loyal Book Review
Overtime by Mari Loyal is a closed-door hockey romance with dual POVs, sizzling kisses, body positivity, and emotional growth. It follows two seniors in college—star captain of the men’s hockey team Aran and tutor/author Maddie.
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Overtime
Author: Mari Loyal
Pub. Date: June 27, 2024
Series: St. Cloud Hockey book 2
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Pages: 348
Rating: 4 stars
Spice: 1 heart
Content Warnings: swearing, fatphobia, bullying, body shaming, medical content, racism, blood, & fainting
Synopsis:
He’s the grumpy hockey captain with a bad boy reputation, and now I’ve been assigned as his tutor for the rest of the semester.
ARAN
The pressure is on in my senior year to wow hockey recruiters no matter what. My only outlet was casual dating until the latest fling makes a scene in the middle of my team’s locker room, and gets me in trouble with the coach. And that’s without him even knowing I’m about to flunk an elective.
So I have a plan: Step one, swear off girls for the rest of the season. Step two, do some overtime school work with the help of a tutor.
Except said tutor is about to ruin the whole plan.
MADDIE
Just a few months left of college and I’ll officially start my career as an author. But before that, I’m in desperate need of more income to move away from my fatphobic roommates. So I ramp up my tutoring gig, and start working on a hockey romance idea that I can self-publish quickly. There’s only one problem: I know nothing about hockey—or real life romance.
Insert Aran. Not only I’ll get paid for tutoring him, but maybe he can also teach me about the sport. All I have to do is remember that a real-life romance is off the table.
The overtime tutoring sessions start getting less academic, but can we beat the ticking clock?
Book Review
Thank you to the author for the ARC of Overtime by Mari Loyal. All opinions are my own.
This is book two in the St. Cloud Hockey series, but it can be read as a standalone. It follows characters mentioned in the previous book (Faceoff) but takes place quite a few years later.
Thoughts
I enjoyed the main characters in this story a lot. Maddie was such a strong character with so many hilarious embarrassing moments. She was juggling so many things and having to deal with a lot of bullies (including some of her family), yet she didn’t allow all those circumstances to keep her down.
Aran was secretly so sweet but had made some bad choices when it came to women in his past. I liked how kind he was to Maddie and how he constantly made her blush. I also really liked how protective he was of his family and how he turned to his sisters for help.
The character growth in this story was nice. Not only did the main characters grow, but several of the side characters had moments of redemption.
This author is great at including steamy romance scenes without explicit content. She also included a really helpful content warnings section at the beginning of the book to help readers to know what to expect. I really appreciated this!
Final Thoughts
Overall, I would recommend this book if you’re looking for a college-age hockey romance without explicit content.
Where to Read & Purchase
You can purchase a copy of this book at the following retailers:
Amazon [affiliate]
You can also find this book on:
Have you read Overtime or any other books by Mari Loyal?
I would love to hear your thoughts! Comment down below.
Other posts you might enjoy:
Faceoff by Mari Loyal Book Review