Caro Cassidy helped Team USA win Olympic medals when she was younger, but now she’s content to manage a hockey training center outside of Chicago for girls’ hockey.

Amy Schwarzbach never made it to the Olympics, but she’s a hotshot player for a professional women’s hockey team. She’s very excited about the opportunity to work at Caro’s facility because Caro has always been one of her idols.

At first, Caro doesn’t know what to do with Amy’s exuberant personality because it’s such a stark contrast to her more reserved nature, but opposites attract. 

I absolutely adore Rachel Reid’s queer hockey romances, as well as Avon Gale/Piper Vaughn’s too, so I was excited to read a queer hockey romance featuring two women. There weren’t as many game scenes as some of the other hockey romances, but the milieu was enough for me—I love hockey!

There’s a bit of an age gap between Caro and Amy, but that wasn’t the biggest obstacle they faced. Amy is proudly bisexual and very much out. Caro, on the other hand, prefers to keep her personal life private. This stems from her family’s intolerance of her sexuality, an issue that reappears over the course of the narrative. This plotline was a bit heavier than I was expecting, but it served as an interesting contrast to the lighter material.

That said, this book is so cute. Amy is an absolute sweetheart and her charm is practically contagious. Doug the dog stole the show at every possible opportunity, despite being a lazy old man who prefers to loll around. Caro spent so much of her life on hockey—first as an athlete and then as a business owner, and so finding love was never a priority for her.  

I would recommend Out on the Ice.  I loved the slow burn aspect of the romance and the difference in personalities, but the best part of this book was Caro becoming more comfortable with herself over the course of the book. On that note, I loved how therapy is normalized. This was a lovely book, and I’m looking forward to reading more from Farmer in the future.

I received a copy of this book from Carina Press/NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.