Riggs by Sawyer Bennett

Rating: 5/5
PoP: 60%
Tropes: Hockey; Enemies to Lovers; Single Parent; Friends with Benefits; Slow Burn
Series: Arizona Vengeance #11
POV:  Dual 1st Person

When you start reading this book, you go into it with expectations because of the face that it is a Sawyer Bennett hockey romance.  And she is an amazing storyteller that gives you exactly what you what, but then you get to the 95% mark of this book, and she blows those expectations out of the water and sets up something that you never saw coming.  So brace yourself, but until then, let’s talk Riggs and Veronica.

Riggs has been traded to the Vengeance in the aftermath of circumstances surrounding Baden and hasn’t really come into his own with the team. He is the guardian to his seventeen-year-old sister because of terrible home conditions.  And the tow of them are not adjusting the best to their new situation.  Janelle gets a job at the bookstore that Clarke (the heroine from Wylde) owns and meets Veronica.  Veronica is a divorcee who has gotten a sizeable settlement and is working at the store with her best friend. 

Janelle and Veronica start up an unlikely friendship that gives Janelle comfort and love and stability that she isn’t quite getting from Riggs.  The first time that Riggs and Veronica meet face to face it doesn’t go well because Riggs stereotypes Veronica and isn’t willing to think otherwise.  What follows is the two of them doing a dance of some ego and mistruths but Janelle is right in the middle to set them both straight.  Veronica changes her tune much sooner than Riggs, but she is pretty jaded because of her failed relationship with an abusive and controlling ex.  Riggs truly doesn’t want to see the good in Veronica and what she is doing to help Janelle out her shell.  But I will say this, once they get together and the pretense and veils come down, they see all the truths they need.

There is one point in this book that Riggs and Janelle’s past comes back, and Veronica does not hesitate to put herself between Janelle and anything that could hurt her.  I adore this about Veronica that she is more worried about the safety and well-being of a teenager that she has known for a hot minute than herself.  And this is a big turning point in the relationship between Riggs and Veronica.  They get their HEA, and in the midst of that, the major twist happens, and it sets up so many things to come.  If you haven’t read Sawyer Bennett….DO IT NOW!!!