Some games are hotter off the ice…
Sofia Phillips feels cursed. Her father cheated on her mother, her boyfriend cheated on her—she’s done with dating. A summer work-exchange program in Finland is the perfect escape. But instead of gaining experience as an athletic trainer, she’s cleaning toilets. Awesome. The trip is a disaster, and even better, she meets Kyle Bennett. In the sauna. Naked.
Sexy hockey player Kyle was the star right wing for an NHL team. But after an accident killed his wife and left him injured, Kyle has appreciated the “therapeutic” benefits of booze and puck bunnies. Now in Finland for the summer, he’s coaching in an elite hockey-training camp for teens. When Sofia's grandmother decides to set her up with a nice Finnish man, Sofia recruits Kyle as her make-believe boyfriend. Neither expects their first kiss to sizzle. And neither expects, while stranded on an island during a storm, to have a scorching night of passion.
But as their charade, and then their attraction, develops into something deeper, the past comes back, threatening to destroy them. They must decide if their feelings for each other are strong enough to survive—or it will be game over.
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Guest Post
Please welcome Stina Lindenblatt to Diane’s Book Blog.
The Naked Men Muses
Like most college-bound students, I dreamed of spending a year in Europe post graduation, traveling around the great cities. But then I discovered that I could do something even better. I could spend the summer working in Finland, the country where my mother was originally from. I loved the place, and this was a chance to be closer to my heritage and get to know my grandparents better—even if they didn’t speak English and my Finnish sucked.
Except, I hadn’t anticipated that my summer would involve cleaning toilets (oh, joy!) in a recreation center. Nor had I anticipated that I would have to scrub down the saunas on a daily basis. Better yet, scrub them while they were still hot. And unlike in North America, the saunas in Finland are VERY hot.
One day while scrubbing the men’s sauna, which was officially closed at that point, I heard a noise and turned around…in time to see four men walk in, naked. Now, it wasn’t as if I’d never seen a naked man before. But I was only twenty-one years old and hadn’t had that much, um, exposure to them. Naturally my face grew hotter—an amazing feat given that I was in the hot sauna and my face was already heated. I spluttered something in Finnish that was supposed to be “sauna is closed” while doing my best not to look at their man parts. To this day, I still thank God for the wooden railing between them and me.
They left the sauna and bumped into the girl I was working with. Fortunately for her they were now fully clothed. It was only then they learned that I’m Canadian. Thanks to my attempts at Finnish, they had thought I was an Estonia refuge. They were disappointed that I hadn’t spoken in English. At least that they would have understood.
As mortifying as the experience had been at the time, it was the inspiration behind the first chapter in Heat It Up. Only this time, two very hot hockey players walk in on the heroine as she is cleaning the sauna. Lucky girl!
You can find Stina Lindenblatt at:
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