After seeing the lower ratings for her television baking show, Delilah Baker suggests a one-time collaboration with one of her professional hockey player brother’s teammates to help boost viewership. In order to combat some recent bad publicity, Ian Chase, Delilah’s brother’s best friend and Delilah’s childhood crush who has recently been traded back to the team, is volunteered for the collaborative episode on Delilah’s show. When Ian’s episode goes viral and the internet starts shipping Ian and Delilah, their agents suggest a fake dating PR stunt to in the hopes of continuing to improve Delilah’s show’s ratings as well as Ian’s tarnished image. As they spend more time together for their PR stunt, Delilah finds it challenging to ignore her old lingering feelings for Ian and Ian starts to see his best friend’s kid sister (who is definitely not a kid anymore) in a whole new light.
The Game Changer is a fake dating, friends to lovers, hockey romance perfect for fans of books like Mixed Signals by B.K. Borison, The Dixon Rule by Elle Kennedy, Unravel Me by Becka Mack, The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams, The Fake Out by Stephanie Archer, and Matching All the Way by Veronica Eden. The Game Changer deals with themes and topics like family, orphanhood, marriage and divorce, infidelity, appearance versus reality, secrets and lies, reputation and legacy, fame and status, mental health, and self worth.
I have read a lot of hockey romances recently, so much so that some of the plots and characters are starting to blur together in my mind, so the addition of Delilah’s baking show in The Game Changer was appreciated as I felt like this really helped it to be more memorable and stand apart from other hockey romances. Spoiler, but there was no third act break-up as well as lots of spice and swoon-worthy moments in The Game Changer, which will be definite pluses for fellow romance readers!
On the downside, it was harder to get into The Game Changer compared to other Lana Ferguson books that I’ve read, perhaps because friends to lovers isn’t my favourite trope, and thought that the plot was a tad predictable.
Overall, The Game Changer was an enjoyable and easy read that would be a great addition to steamy romance readers’ summer TBR lists!
The Game Changer is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, as of July 9th 2024.
Will you be picking up The Game Change? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A hockey player and a baker shoot their shot in this steamy new romance by Lana Ferguson, USA Today bestselling author of The Nanny.
When a very public breakup becomes a PR nightmare for Ian Chase’s team, he hopes to focus on his game, but that suddenly seem less likely than a hat trick. With his career and the team’s image in jeopardy, Ian is surprised to find a solution through none other than Delilah Baker, his best friend and teammate’s little sister…who isn’t so little anymore.
Delilah Baker is known as “the darling of baking” on her local cable show, and being in the public eye is her bread and butter. But with her numbers dwindling and her producers turning up the heat, Delilah offers up the half-baked idea to collaborate with her brother’s team to entice the hockey fans of Boston to tune in to her show. Delilah thinks it will be a piece of cake—until the team sends Ian Chase, her brother’s best friend and the object of a decade-long crush that she’s never quite gotten over.
Delilah’s and Ian’s teams think it’s a true win-win situation—gaining higher numbers for Delilah’s show and casting Ian in a more positive light. And viewers are eating them up like a cupcake, sparking the idea to play up their relationship for the goal of good press. With more than just their careers on thin ice, the line between what’s real and what’s for show begins to blur, but one thing’s for certain: This PR stunt will either be a total game changer—or leave them both totally pucked.
