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Looking for a Spicier Hockey Romance? Try the Jacksonville Rays
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If Heated Rivalry and Off Campus have you looking for your next hockey romance, I have a series for you. And when I say I’ve read a lot of hockey romance, I mean an almost embarrassing amount of hockey romance. At this point, I probably know more fictional hockey players than actual ones. So believe me when I tell you: Emily Rath’s Jacksonville Rays series is on the spicier end of the hockey-romance spectrum.
A quick disclaimer about my pepper ratings: spice is incredibly subjective. What earns five peppers from one reader might barely make another reader blink. My ratings are based on the frankly unreasonable number of hockey romances I’ve read—and even compared with that extensive research, these are spicy. Also, if you’re coming from mostly closed-door or mildly spicy romance, do not make this your first little toe-dip into spicy hockey romance.
The door isn’t cracked open.
The door is open. The back door is open. The windows are open.
You have been warned.
Pucking Around
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
5/5 peppers
The first book jumps right in with an MMFM relationship, so this should tell you pretty quickly what kind of series you’ve wandered into. But there’s an actual story underneath all those peppers, and the relationships are what kept me invested. I especially loved Jake and Caleb’s relationship and getting to watch it grow throughout the book. It added another layer to the story that I wasn’t expecting to enjoy quite as much as I did.
I also really liked how the conflict was handled. I’m not a fan of a third-act breakup or a misunderstanding that separates everyone for half the book just because we need some drama. The relationships get room to develop without unnecessary separation dragging everything out. It’s spicy. Very spicy. But I wasn’t reading only for the spice.
My take: Start here. It’s long, but I got completely sucked into the characters and their relationships.
Read Pucking Around →
Pucking Wild
🌶🌶🌶🌶
4/5 peppers
Book two gives us an MF reverse age-gap romance, and I really liked their dynamic. He’s got a little bit of golden-retriever energy—but not so much that it turned me off. I am not a big black-cat/golden-retriever person, and this was probably right on the cusp of how much golden retriever I can take.
She’s older, definitely more sexually experienced, and instead of being intimidated by that, he is ALL about it. I loved that part of their relationship. This one also continues something I appreciated in the first book: the conflict doesn’t require an unnecessarily long separation. There’s plenty happening without making me spend half the book waiting for two adults to please just talk to each other.
My take: If reverse age gap is your thing—or you like the idea of a golden retriever hero but sometimes find the full-blown version a little much—this one hits a really good middle ground.
Read Pucking Wild →
Pucking Sweet
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
5/5 peppers
We’re back to more players on the ice—figuratively speaking—with an MMF relationship. This one does have more separation than the first two, which normally has the potential to lose me. But it resolved quickly enough that it never crossed into okay, this has gone on long enough territory.
That’s really the theme for me with this series. I don’t mind conflict. I don’t even mind some separation when it makes sense. I just don’t want to spend 150 pages frustrated because everyone refuses to have one conversation. Here, it worked for me. And once again, there’s enough actual story and character development that the book doesn’t feel like a collection of spicy scenes loosely held together by hockey.
My take: A little more angst and separation than the first two, but it resolved quickly enough that it wasn’t off-putting for me.
Read Pucking Sweet →
Pucking Strong
On My List
Okay, I have an excuse. When I started reading the Jacksonville Rays, the series wasn’t complete yet. So I finished what was available…and then I got sucked into another series. And then another one. And, well, anyone with a TBR knows exactly how this goes. So I haven’t made my way back to Pucking Strong yet.
There’s also one part of the premise that’s made me a little slower to pick it up. The story involves a child being injured in a car accident that kills her parents. I have a little one, and storylines involving children being hurt can sometimes be a trigger for me. That’s completely personal and isn’t a reflection on the book—I just need to be in the right mood for that kind of storyline.
I will get to this one, though! And when I do, I’ll come back and add the pepper rating and tell you what I thought rather than pretending to review a book I haven’t read.
Read Pucking Strong →
Should You Read the Jacksonville Rays?
If you’re looking for hockey romance with high spice, different relationship dynamics, characters you actually care about, and enough story to keep you reading beyond the spicy scenes, put this series on your list. Just know what you’re getting into. This is not the series I’d hand someone who says, “I usually like the bedroom door mostly closed, but I think I’m ready to branch out.” No. Work your way up.
For everyone else? Welcome to Jacksonville. And apparently, I’ll see you at the rink.
