"Scorching sex , an alpha hero as the right Dom"

If you'd ever told me that I would thoroughly enjoy a novel set in the world of pro hockey (probably my least favorite sport, even though it's the state pasttime of my favorite state, Maine), let alone one in which a man uses sex to take revenge on the widow of an old enemy, I'd have probably fallen out of my chair laughing. But POWER PLAY is good enough to overcome both handicaps.

Kristen is the manager and part-owner of a failing minor league hockey team. Her ex-husband sullied the team's name when his sexual harassment of fellow team members created a national scandal, which was only exacerbated by his drunken car accident. His brother is still part of the team and his resentment of former Olympic women's hockey gold medal winner Kristen isn't helping morale any. Still, she believes in the team and thinks this could be the year they win a regional championship -- if majority co-owner Brian Corrigan, a man she cannot stand, doesn't sell the franchise. She's willing to do whatever it takes to keep them playing for another season so she can make her dead father's dream come true. But she isn't prepared for the conditions Brian sets to keep the team alive. He demands that she marry him for the season, a marriage which will not be officially consummated (although everything else but intercourse is permitted in the deal), allowing an annulment if the team wins. If the team loses, she's his permanently.

Brian sets out to wreak his revenge on the widow of the man who ruined his knee and ended his hockey career. He wants the publicity value of the marriage, but he also wants to break Kristen's spirit. He begins in small incremements, like choosing her underwear and demanding she wear only luxurious lace bras and panties (she's more Jockey For Her than Victoria's Secret). When she disobeys, he spanks her. He makes full use of the everything-but-intercourse terms of the deal. But the more he gets to know her, the more he remembers the tough little girl he taught to play hockey when he lived with her family at the beginning of his hockey career -- and the more he learns that Kristen is not the bitch he believed her to be. On her part, Kristen comes to realize that she is thrilled to her toes by Brian's dominance in bed and, while she wants her team to win, she isn't sure she actually wants to win the battle of the sexes she and Brian seem to be fighting.

In less skilled hands, this book would be a disaster. Brian's thirst for vengeance on a woman who never did anything to him other than marry a bisexual abusive jerk could easily make him downright loathsome. Forcing a woman to have sex with you after she's made it clear she wants nothing to do with you is rape, in my book -- but Kristen has already consented to be his living blow-up doll for the duration, and he spelled out the terms pretty clearly when she agreed to the deal. Without these scenes, he'd be an asshole the size of the Grand Canyon. Somehow, Brian transcends his situation, and the more we learn about him, the harder it is to dislike him, something we share with Kristen. He changes from overbearing bully to caring Dominant in the course of the book, and it's the growth that keeps you reading (well, his sexual abilities help, too). Kristen is a moving portrait of a high-powered woman determined to make it in the world of men's professional sports, who struggles with her own hidden (and very non-PC) needs to submit sexually to a dominant man. What could easily have been just another forced-sex-but-she-really- loves-it story of the sort I dislike heartily, becomes instead a Taming of the Shrew in the world of hockey. I'll leave it to the readers to decide who is the shrew!

This torrid love story has sex scenes that could easily melt the ice in a hockey rink, but what makes it work are the rich, complex characterizations.

Sensuality rating: NC 17, with sex that is only semi- consensual, spanking, bondage, sex toys, and anal and oral sex.

Reviewed by Gillian Fitzgerald
Courtesy Sensual Romance Reviews
Posted June 10, 2004

Summary

To save her hockey team, businesswoman and former Olympiad Kristen DuChein finds her only recourse to be Brian Corrigan, her late husband's sworn enemy. With her back against the wall, Kristen agrees to a marriage of convenience with Brian, a union to provide her team with the financial survival necessary to make a run for the coveted Emerald Cup.

But Brian's motives are based less on altruism and more on retribution. Still, as he callously forces Kristen to face the dark side of her sensual nature, Brian finds himself becoming hopelessly ensnared in his own black desires and lusts for the woman on whom he has sworn revenge.

Set in the fast-paced and exciting world of professional hockey, Power Play explores the reluctant yet passionate hunger of two headstrong people drawn together against their will.