Title: Game On
Author: Zarah Detand
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Release Date: September 15, 2026
Genre(s): Hockey Romance
Page Count: 341
Reviewed by: Crabbypatty
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Blurb:
Flirt with a stranger. Get the photo. Walk away. The job should have been simple—if the stranger hadn’t turned out to be the most famous ice hockey star in the league…
Stellan is very good at being the right kind of irresistible to the wrong kind of man—it pays the rent, and that’s the deal. But when one Chicago hotel lounge job results in a career-ending photo of NHL star Matt Harkins and Stellan is fired for trying to stop it, the whole disaster gets filed under the worst day of his life.
Seven months later, Matt walks into a Seattle suit fitting and finds Stellan holding out the next jacket. Matt is blindsided and absolutely not over it… but the chemistry between them is undeniable. He knows he should walk away, but one stolen night turns into two, then more—and a closeted ice hockey captain with everything to lose is about to find out exactly how much he’s willing to risk.
Game On is a sizzling M/M hockey romance from a bestselling author, perfect for fans of Heated Rivalry. You can expect…
Closeted athletes
Forbidden romance
Forced proximity
Slow-burn chemistry
Open-door spice
Effortlessly attractive Stellan is at the ritzy Chicago hotel, awaiting his “mark.” Stellan just needs to charm him enough to get a photo taken that looks compromising enough for blackmail purposes. “It wasn’t my job to judge him. My job was to be the harmless chance he’d want to take.” Yes, Stellan realizes his job is ethically …. not okay, but ethics don’t pay rent and food.
Until he meets the mark Matt – broad shoulders, big hands, steady, guarded, yet very much interested. After a stumble into Matt’s lap, Stellan feels …. “something real. Something that made the whole setup feel suddenly filthy even as a cold part of my brain went, There, that’s your picture.” Then Stellan learns that Matt is THE Matt Harkins, captain of the Seattle Cascades hockey team.
In Seattle, seven months later, Matt shows up at a very expensive tailor for a suit fitting, and meets the assistant – Stellan. And then, the plot takes a detour from what I’d sort of expected – this isn’t a story of dealing with a forced outing, and a relationship that starts with angry fights and hate sex until they realize they love each other, followed by a HEA.
Anger is easy and taking a chance is a huge risk, but Matt is a good Minnesota boy who was raised right and Stellan made him feel seen. Matt wants to know if any of it was real and if he could actually have something for himself. Stellan comes with way too much baggage and has worked so hard to provide for his brother and himself for far too many years. But Matt makes him want to show up as himself and see if a relationship between them could possibly work.
There are a lot of characters here and each is richly developed and fleshed out, along with a subplot about Suit Up Wednesdays (which Stellan started to help young people with free donated clothes for interviews) that is all sorts of wonderful, but there are a few misses as well.
Matt’s friend and manager sarcastic heart-of-gold Reid just came off as being too much in my view. The subplot with Stellan’s nefarious former employer seems important until it isn’t and is solved with “barely an inconvenience” and the teased relationship between Reid and Stellan’s friend Naomi seems forced.
But the strength of this book is the relationship that Matt and Stellan carve out together. The on-page sex is not extensively detailed, but the hurts, the forgiveness and love, and their deep emotional bond is front and center.
Buy Link Amazon Global Facebook Auther Website GoodReads
About Zarah Detand
Author of witty M/M romances with snark and heart. Chaos monkey. Coffee snob. Cheese is her love language.
Zarah’s partial to a slow burn that unfolds with maddening patience and an extremely satisfying payoff. She loves opposites that attract and has never met a celebrity romance trope she didn’t like—and frankly, at this point, might need professional help. Expect sharp banter, inconvenient feelings, and guaranteed happy endings.
