Review: Delayed Penalty by Shey Stahl

★One Glorious Pucking Star!★ (Pun intended.)








...You know those times when you're reading a book and you're so utterly bored out of you mind that by the time you actually finish the story, you don't even know what it was even really about nor did you even care to know anyway? That pretty much sums up my feelings for this book.

Oh yeah, and this...

I'm actually incredibly surprised to be writing such a negative review because I'm a big fan of the author Shey Stahl. Her Racing On The Edge series ROCKED and is still a favorite of mine to this day. I had no hesitations going into this story what-so-ever because of that reason alone, but sadly that was one dumb-ass decision on my part.

For starters, the characters in this book lacked some major depth. There were so many references to hockey players it was almost as if we, as readers, should understand how they are as a character based on that fact alone. For example:

"Fuck me the way a hockey player would." ~Ami 

...Umm, say what? I guess the million dollar question here would be how does a hockey player get it on exactly? Do they take classes for that kind of shit or something? ...Because I obviously missed the memo here.

All this "hockey player" talk leads me to my next topic... The hero, Mase. His character acted like more of a hormonal woman than a "bad-ass" hockey player. The dude cried more for Ami in regards to her brutal attack than the girl cried for herself- And last I checked, she was the one who was man-handled. I mean, for God's sake! ...And don't even get me started on his bedroom skills...

"I wanted her to come but knew that wasn't happening. For one, she was probably in too much pain. And two, I wasn't lasting long enough for that. Maybe next time." ~Mase 

Oh, how nice of him. If that's the mentality a hockey player has in regards to how he treats his woman in the bedroom then I think I'll pass, thanks. As for the heroine Ami, there was absolutely nothing memorable about her. She survived a brutal attack which I commend her for but she had no other impressive qualities... And that's all I have to say. That's it... That's all I've got. I'm not even going to bother going into any other detail when it comes to her character because I honest to God have nothing of importance to add. She was just there; Nothing set her apart from any other character that was introduced in the book so there's really no point in making an effort to discuss her.

And speaking of things that aren't important...

All of the detailed descriptions revolving around the constant play-by-play of the hockey games really bugged the shit out of me. It all felt like a filler... A Constant. Boring. Filler.

Boom.
Done.

Needless to say, this book did absolutely nothing for me. Aside from the dramatic event in the beginning, everything else was just extremely slow and torturous to get through. It was highly repetitive, lacked major character development and bored me to tears. Shey Stahl has always been an automatic auto-buy for me and while this story didn't change my feelings about that, I definitely won't go into another book of hers with such high expectations again.