Swoony Sunday Book Review: "The Shots You Take"
Rachel Reid's newest gay hockey romance is heartbreaking and heartwarming second-chance romance that will make you believe in love all over again.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the book follow.
I have a confession to make. Despite the fact that I love gay romance, and despite the fact that I’m a sucker for a good jock love story, until now I’ve never read a gay hockey romance. However, I came upon Rachel Reid’s The Shots You Take at my local library–which, by the way, is fantastic when it comes to stocking LGBTQ+ romances–and I knew right away that this was going to be one of those that was going to both enthrall me and ruin me.
I was very, very correct.
When the story begins Riley–a former NHL player who has struggled with mental health and addiction–is attending his father’s funeral. It’s a devastating loss, obviously, and it’s clear that it’s taking everything he has not to fall completely apart. As if to add insult to injury, he spots the last person he wants to see at the funeral: his former best friend-with-benefits Adam, a retired hockey star. Very quickly, however, the two start to feel drawn to one another again, as Adam does everything in his power to show Riley that he regrets his previous actions and wants to try to build something with him. It’s not easy going for either of them but, slowly but surely, the connection they forged when they were younger starts to bloom again, showing that it’s never too late for love.
Let me start by saying that this book absolutely tore my heart out and left it in little bitty pieces. I’m 100% sure this is because Adam and Riley’s romance is, at least in some ways, similar to the one that I yearned for for years with the best friend of my youth, but it’s also because Reid is that good of a writer of romance. She draws you in from the first page to the last, making you fall in love with these characters just as much as they fall in love with one another.
However, my investment in this novel is also attributable to Reid’s undeniable talent as a writer of M/M romance. She has a knack for capturing the heartbreak and the beauty–and the powerful, sometimes overwhelming lust–that are such key elements of gay male romance. I particularly enjoyed the fact that both Riley and Adam are now in their 40s, since this is a demographic that is still not as served by romance as it should be. After all, millennials, at least those of the geriatric variety, came of age in an era in which homophobia was much more rife (and socially acceptable) than it is now, so seeing this brought to life in such powerful fashion really hit home for me.
I also appreciated that the novel toggles between the past and the present, so that we get more insight into just what it is that drew these men together in the first place. As someone who is roughly the same age as Riley and Adam, I understand the milieu in which they grew up (even if I’m not a hockey player). A sense of sadness and ache hovers over these flashbacks, as Riley, and the reader, can’t help but be aware that Adam will never be able to give him the love that he so desperately desires.
The scenes in the present, meanwhile, are both more optimistic yet no less powerful and poignant. Whether it’s Adam referring to Riley by the nickname “Riles” or Riley struggling to get his emotions in order so that he can cope with the eruption of Adam back into his life, we can’t help but feel for these two men and for them each to find a way to make it work. There’s more than a little angst and ache in some of these chapters, because even though Adam is desperate to make amends for the way that he treated Riley in the past, Riley is, understandably, quite reluctant to accept said apology, let alone to let Adam into his life. The Shots You Take is perfectly-paced to allow this romance to play out in a way that feels authentic and earned rather than abrupt, and both characters put in the work to make this work.
And let’s talk about the sex, shall we? While The Shots We Take isn’t quite as explicit as some of the other gay romances that I’ve read recently, it’s still quite steamy. I’m a huge fan of powerful gay sex scenes, particularly when they have some emotional heft to them, and in that regard this book more than delivers. Sex is obviously a means for the characters to connect with one another in a way that transcends language, but it’s also about vulnerability, about learning to let your walls down and let another person into your body. Reid handles all of this with a remarkable level of nuance and richness. And, I’ll be honest, I was incredibly turned on. That, to me, is the mark of a truly great sex scene.
While the heart and soul of this book is obviously the love story between Riley and Adam, it’s also about other weighty issues. Riley, for his part, has to make his way through the fraught landscape of grief, and as someone whose father has had his fair share of health struggles in the last few years, this part really hit home. As someone who has carried a flame for a person that I could never have, Riley’s story is also a bit of wish-fulfillment for me.
Adam, likewise, has to figure out what his life is going to look like now that he’s divorced and has accepted his identity as a gay man. This is never an easy terrain to navigate, but the fact that he is an international hockey star just makes it all that much more difficult. Thanks to Reid’s remarkable skills as a writer, however, we’re invited to love and care about Adam, even if we, like Riley, sometimes want to throttle him. He’s very much like an eager puppy, and this is precisely what makes him so endearing and at times irritating. I will say, though, that any man that would be willing to leave a seashell on my late father’s grave would automatically have a one-way ticket into my heart (and, if I’m being honest, into my pants).
Two other points are also worth noting. Though I’m not Canadian and have never been further north than Quebec, I still felt as if I was right there in this small Nova Scotian town with the characters. I love books that immerse me in new settings and surroundings, and I could almost feel the breeze off the ocean. This is the kind of small town that you just want to curl up in, and I was reminded more than a little of Schitt’s Creek. There are more than enough side characters–including Riley’s mother and sister and a little group of queer friends–to make this feel like a place that actually exists in the real world.
I’ll close with the other point, which is an echo of what I said above. It really meant a lot to me to see two middle-aged men–with all of their aches and pains and graying hair–finding the happiness that they’ve both sought after for so long. Having grown up in the shadow of AIDS, I still can’t help but feel that it’s rather miraculous to see an entire generation of gay men growing into their middle years, and I will forever cherish The Shots We Take for giving us this wonderful, heartwarming, deeply sexy, gay love story.