Emmett Brodie is a professional hockey player who fell in love with his now wife, event planner Cara Hunter, at first sight. After seeing all of their friends couple up and start their own families, Emmett and Cara are ready to become parents too. But their journey to parenthood is anything but easy and their relationship is tested as they have to deal with negative pregnancy test after negative pregnancy test and many unsuccessful infertility treatments, which really takes an emotional toll on Cara’s mental health and self worth. There are many different ways to become a parent, so when an opportunity to foster arises, Cara and Emmett must decide if they are willing to face more potential heartbreak by opening their home to a young child in need for an uncertain amount of time.
Breathe With Me is the fifth and final book in the Playing for Keeps series, a series of interconnected hockey romances, and should not be read as a standalone. Breathe With Me is perfect for readers who enjoy romance books that are spicy but also include some more serious topics, like those by Hannah Bonam-Young, Chloe Walsh, Yulin Kuang, Abby Jimenez, or Farah Heron.
Cara and Emmett’s story features the insta-love, he falls first and harder, and boy obsessed tropes. Breathe With Me focuses on themes and topics like infertility, PTSD, self worth and self love, love and heartbreak, motherhood and parenthood, fostering and adoption, jealousy, depression and mental health, as well as friendship and found family.
Breathe With Me had a very different vibe than the rest of the series; Cara and Emmett are already an established couple who are together throughout the entirety of the series and the tone of their book is more serious, whereas the previous books focus on the couples meeting and falling in love and are much more light-hearted. Cara and Emmett’s story wasn’t really like other books about pre-established couples that I’ve read either in that it wasn’t a second chance romance, and I’m not sure that I would call it a “marriage on the rocks” story either. Their story was really emotional as the main focus is on their gut-wrenching journey with infertility and Cara’s struggles with jealousy and self hate upon seeing many in her close circle become parents without the struggle. Interspersed throughout Cara and Emmett’s infertility journey are some of the typical hockey boy shenanigans that we’ve seen throughout the series as well as some really spicy flashback scenes depicting how Cara and Emmett’s story began, which I loved. Also, despite all the sadness that Cara and Emmett go through, the book does also end on a more positive note, which I appreciated.
Since this was the last book in the Playing for Keeps series, I’m interested to see what’s up next for Becka Mack…Will we get more hockey romances or something different? Perhaps the kids in the Playing for Keeps series will get their own books in the future (like with Elle Kennedy’s Campus Diaries series). If you’ve previously enjoyed the rest of the Playing for Keeps series and you’re up for a more emotional read, then I highly recommend checking out Breathe With Me.
Breathe With Me is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
Will you be picking up Breathe With Me? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis
From bestselling author and TikTok sensation Becka Mack comes the final book in her sizzling hockey romance series about a couple who face an agonizing challenge that could bring them closer—or tear them apart.
Cara Hunter is a self-made woman. Driven and fearless, she’s never lost a battle. In fact, the only time she’s fallen to her knees was, well . . . for him.
Emmett Brodie might be one of hockey’s hottest players, but the moment he sees Cara, he’s reduced to a single word: hers. And he’ll stop at nothing to change her last name.
With a love as all-encompassing and fierce as theirs, they become the ultimate power couple and the backbone of their family. But when they decide it’s time to have a baby, they discover their journey to conceiving will be anything but easy. As they face off with infertility, a battle that strips them to their bones, they’ll see just how unshakable their foundation really is.
They thought they could survive anything together, but how do you survive when you’re barely breathing?
