Watch Your Mouth: Special Edition (Kings of the Ice: Special Edition)

“My whole life, I’d been walking in a fog, in a dense and heavy cloud that I thought would stay with me forever. But one night with her had brought in the sun.” tropes: -hockey romance -road trip -teammate’s/best friend’s sister -age gap -forced proximity -opposites attract -grumpy/sunshine -one bed this is book two in the kings of the ice series, meet your match is book one! 🏒 honestly Kandi Steiner never disappoints me, so I’m not surprised I loved this book!! Grace is heartbroken and Jaxson wants to help her feel better, so they take off a road trip, having so many adventures together. we started off with so much tension between Grace and Jaxson, which I always love some good tension!! they easily developed a friendship that goes to another level. there is a forbidden aspect to it because they are keeping their relationship and their road trip adventure a secret from everyone, including her brother! but as their tension breaks, their connection turns into something so much deeper. they both see each other in a way they never let anyone else see them. their love is so sweet. I was not expecting to get emotional!! Grace was so relatable to me, she’s there whenever anyone needs her and she just wants to make those around her happy. I loved that she loves adventure and wants to travel the world. thank you kandi for the arc! I cannot wait for book three!! 🤭 “Watch your mouth when you’re talking to my girl.” AHHHHHHH I’m still screaming about this!!

I have loved hockey for most of my life but this was my second hockey romance book and it was so good! The first one is also by Kandi called Meet Your Match also a must read. If you are looking for some spice and adventure be sure to pick this one up, you won’t be disappointed!

Book Review: “Watch Your Mouth” Author: Kandi Steiner Tropes: Hockey Romance, Forced Proximity, He Falls First, Bestfriend’s Younger Sister. Rating: 4⭐️ & 2🌶️. • After finishing the first book in this series (and enjoying it a lot), I was grateful that past-me had already purchased the second book to read too! I don’t know what it is with sports romance series ALWAYS having the second book be a (best friends brother or sister as the main character), but I am here for it. Obviously it works as we know from this book, but also “The Right Move” by LT and “Play With Me” by BM! I also don’t know if traveling together is a romance trope, but I am here for the adventures and the tight living quarters🙈 • Below are some of my favorite quotes: -“It says you are going to kiss me one day. I thought you had a boyfriend. I can’t have friends if I have a boyfriend? You kiss all your friends? Haven’t kissed you yet”. -“You called me Nova? I did. Why? Because you burn brighter than anyone else in the room”.

Overall Grade: A-/B+ Tropes: best friend’s little sister; teammate’s little sister; brother’s best friend; professional hockey romance; forbidden relationship; road trip romance “And I knew even if we were about to set fire to the world we lived in now, I would gladly live in the ashes if it meant I got to be with him. We surrendered everything. We laid our old lives to rest, knowing there would be hardship and pain ahead of us. We jumped headfirst into the risk, hand in hand, willing to forsake it all in the name of each other. There was no walking away this time. There was no end to this summer.” Among her words, Kandi Steiner wins your heart. She beguiles you with the type of romance that feels ageless, and her newest offering, Watch Your Mouth, is one of the many romances that have found a permanent space in my heart. Jaxson Brittain and Grace Tanev are everything you love about romance: attraction for days and a need for each other that transcends time and space. Each moment of this story was emotionally palpable. One minute, you find yourself laughing at Grace’s attempts (and successes) to add light to Jaxson’s safe, darkened world. The next minute, your panties are damp, and your glasses are fogging from their eroticism. Each step of the book pulls you deeper into their adventures, and Steiner doesn’t miss a step with the only exception being the forbidden trope. I try to avoid critiquing a book on its tropes because there are definite characteristics of tropes that seem required to the genre. However, I want to speak to Steiner’s handling of Jaxson and Grace’s coupling. I get it. Really, I get it: teammate code, bro code, girl code…it’s all wrapped up in integrity and trust. But I really, really want to read stories where the younger sister or best friend can feel drawn to each other, and it doesn’t end up being forbidden. Jaxson and Grace have bigger issues to handle without having to handle the need for her brother’s approval: his need to set boundaries with an abusive father and her need to accept her choices for the future as well as help her family recognize her value as more than her brother’s younger sister. I usually inhale Steiner’s stories, but I found myself taking breaks from this story because I grew tired of Jaxson and Grace’s internal struggles about a future together, Once they recognized their depth of feelings for the other, the story took off for me. I understand that a story has a requirement for tension. Steiner prides herself in the crafting of angst in her stories, but I think angst could have been wrought in other ways that upended the staid challenge of an older brother’s or teammate’s approval. In 2023, I think we can move beyond that. All of that said, I still love Watch Your Mouth. I love how Jaxson and Grace complete each other; I love how Grace challenges Jaxson’s boundaries so he can rewrite his own; I love how Jaxson loves Grace from the depths of himself; I love the found family of the Ospreys and the promise of future stories for Daddy P and Coach McCabe. And I love the spice and drama of Jaxson and Grace’s story. Once they found their power in each other, Watch Your Mouth was like a slap shot to the net, and it managed to be another huge score in Kandi Steiner’s Kings of the Ice series.

-road trip romance -teammates little sister -forced proximity -age gap -a super hot pull up scene you don’t want to miss OH MY GOD ANOTHER MASTERPIECE!! the moment i found out book 2 of the kings of the ice series was going to be based around a road trip, i already knew i was going to love it (this is your sign to read on the way to you if you haven’t yet). and let me tell you this book blew me away, it was EVERYTHING i hoped it would be and more. grace my beautiful wandering soul. she is SO relatable. she is the definition of “quirky in the best way” she is the epitome of sunshine and smiles and go with the flow. she is the life of all parties and loved to think of hypotheticals or would you rathers. but she is so much more than that. grace is such a mirrorball girlie. she feels like she needs to be happy all the time for everyone else & no one really notices that she has other feelings to. and then enter jaxson. jaxson sees grace. he can tell when she’s sad or putting on a show. he wants to know her better but knows he should keep boundaries in place. she is his teammates little sister after all. jaxson also has a lot going on that he keeps bottled up. he has a rocky relationship with his dad but puts up with certain things anyways. he feels stuck, he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about the deeper things yet he feels so drawn to graces energy even the sadder parts. now enter the road trip. the time they spend together is everything. these two characters are undeniably soul mates. they SEE the other one and i mean really see all of the things the other is trying to hide. they openly communicate about what’s going on in their heads and how they’re feeling in different scenarios. they laugh together, they have amazing chemistry, they’re not afraid to open up about the tough parts. they make each other feel seen and supported. oh and they just happen to be on a road trip that’s sizzling with built up tension. the road trip was the highlight of the book. we got to start off with lots of pining and wanting that lead to some uber spicy scenes. we got to see them fall in love organically and got to see grace push jaxson out of his comfort zone and got to see jaxson help grace understand it’s okay to be upset and cry. we still got to see a good amount of the other characters from the kings of the ice series all while they were sneaking around and hiding their road trip from others. we got to see some heartbreaking moments and the reason why these two are the perfect puzzle piece matches for each other. they balance one another so beautifully. anyways, clearly i loved this book and i think everyone else will too. these characters are everything to me, kandi’s books never disappoint and this one was no different. i swear they just keep getting better & better.

4.5 Grace is Jaxon's teammate/best friend's little sister, who is also eight years younger than him. From the first time Jaxon laid eyes on Grace, he was instantly intrigued by her. So it was a bucket of cold water poured on him when he realized that she was his best friend's younger sister. He knew better and tried to resist her every time she was around, but when she showed up at her brother's house crying, Jaxon was immediately on edge and wanted to help her feel better. When he offers to go for a drive to clear her head, Grace takes it as an opportunity to go on a road trip just the two of them! From the start, Grace always tried to push the boundaries between them, but because of her brother and their differences, Jaxon held strong in not giving in. After being alone with her day after day on their road trip to help Grace forget about her ex, Jaxon finds it harder and harder to resist her. Eventually, they give in to the tension and agree that it is just for a couple of weeks while they are on their road trip, then they will go their separate ways and move on. As time goes on and they get to know each other more, the end is seemingly getting harder to accept. Jaxon and Grace's story was so well done! I loved the tension between them, but also the balance of seriousness. Both characters had their flaws and needed to work through things, and on their road trip, they both grew a lot and were able to work through things together. Grace has always been the strong, free-spirited one in her family and friend group, but with Jaxon, she was able to be vulnerable and show what she was feeling. Seeing them together had me swooning and kicking my feet. Despite the odds against them, they knew their connection was worth it. I loved seeing their development and natural feelings mature for each other. Such a great book! Loved seeing Vince and Maven as well. Cannot wait for Daddy P's book next.

I always know when I dive into a Kandi Steiner book to expect tension, angst, heartbreak and an 𝙚𝙥𝙞𝙘 love story and once again, she did not disappoint. We met Grace and Jaxson back in 𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 and 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛𝙡𝙮 got a glimpse of their night in Austin that sparked attraction between them. But now we finally get to see how the night unfolded and even though he knows he can’t do anything about it, Jaxson can’t get Grace out of his head. But when Grace shows up on Vince’s doorstep heartbroken and crying, Jaxson will do anything to stop her tears and that includes agreeing to a roadtrip with his teammate’s forbidden little sister. I love a good roadtrip romance and Kandi absolutely killed it. Grace and Jaxson are so similar and yet so different at the same time and they truly are the perfect puzzle pieces meant for one another. Jaxson encourages Grace to let herself feel whatever she needs to feel, even if that means she needs to let herself be sad for a moment. And Grace really gave him the courage to break free from the weight he still carries from his childhood. They’re each other’s safe place💙 “𝑰’𝒎 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒇𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅.“ “𝒀𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒂𝒇𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒆.“ I can’t even really find the words to describe how pure and beautiful their love for one another is. The 𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗲 had me sobbing buckets😭 But also?! The spice was 𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗜𝗜𝗜𝗜𝗡𝗚🥵 Jaxson had himself a dirty little mouth and I will 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 look at keychains the same again. I’m forever ruined. 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: When you find out the reason for the title?!?! R.I.P. To Me💀

This was a fun, road trip romance laced with depth, chemistry and the pull of a forbidden romance. Jax and Grace took me a bit to get into but once they fell for each other, I couldn't get enough. The spice was so good and I really loved the emotional journey, especially both Jax's and Grace's stories with their families. While the spice and the road trip that was the first half of the book was fantastic, it was the second half where their relationship is tested really had me hook, line and sinker. I am invested in these characters and now cannot wait for Daddy P's story in book 3. Tropes & Elements: 🏒 Hockey Romance ✨ Teammate's Little Sister ⚡️ Age Gap ➶ Forbidden/Secret Romance 🚗 Road Trip 🛏️ One Bed My rating: 3.5 out of 5 ⭐️

All the stars for this book! ✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️ Kandi Steiner has been one of my favourite authors for a while and she never disappoints! I loved Watch Your Mouth so much! 🩵 It's the second book in the Kings of the Ice series. Pro-hockey romance, brother's teammate, forbidden romance, forced proximity, road trip, a "F it" moment... what's not to love?! Jaxson and Grace are everything. I loved seeing how their connection grew and they became each other's person and safe space to feel all the feelings, good and bad. I enjoyed how they worked through things together, but also giving each other space to grow and be their own person. And I really loved to read how Jaxson was so soft and obsessed with Grace! 🌶: As always, Kandi writes spicy scenes like no other! The moments, the connections, the dirty talk, the feelings... I can never get enough! Jaxson and Grace together are 🔥🔥 and the spice will have you melting to the floor! Kandi's writing always tugs at your heart strings and makes you go throught all the emotions. The banter between her characters, the descriptions, the humor, the spice, the love... it's so well written that it completely takes over and you can't stop reading! To me, opening a Kandi Steiner book feels like coming home! I can't wait for the rest of this series! Daddy P... we are waiting for you!! 😁😉