seriously romantic: off the ice by avon gale and piper vaughn

this is a revised and reissued version of off the ice and i never read the original book, so can only tell you that this story is my catnip. i don't know why, because personal experience should find "hot for teacher" stories triggering, but i don't. i love, love, love them.

here you have a pro hockey player, doing his due diligence and completing his college degree on the off season. and a hot puerto rican teacher who makes the mistake of judging him entirely on his appearance. and it's so good because he's basically teaching implicit bias and makes the mistake of falling into it.

okay, so maybe that's the academic publishing nerd in me who finds that so interesting to explore. as a woman, as a minority, implicit bias is everywhere. and it's cool to have a romance novel indirectly make us think about the assumptions we make about others due to their appearance or their social strata or their job or their gender. this is what i love about romance novels, honestly. i love the love story. i love to read about people getting to know each other and loving each other in spite of their quirks or the adversity they are facing. but i also love how most romance novels go beyond that and bring an awareness of something else to the table. it can be as simple as expanding one's sexual boundaries, but also as deeply intellectual as thinking about implicit bias and how it affects how we interact with the world. there is something for everyone here.

**off the ice will publish on march 25, 2019. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/carina press in exchange for my honest review.

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