Embrace (Off the Ice #4) by Bal Khabra

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Thank you to Berkley for the eARC.

Tl;dr: If you loved the Off Campus tv show – like I did – and haven’t picked up the Off the Ice series by Bal Khabra yet, you’re missing out. (And they’re far better than what I’ve heard about the original source material for Off Campus.) Embrace is the least trope-y and also the least hockey-filled of the series, instead really getting into the characters’ emotional core and family struggles while maintaining the romance edge. It could be a good option for those who’ve read few romance novels or few college hockey romances, but I missed some of those elements. While this ultimately was my least favorite installment, I’ve really enjoyed the series and look forward to Bal Khabra’s next project.

A solid entry into the college hockey side of the romance genre

Embrace definitely has the least amount of college hockey in it, and it’s not the focus of the book or of Kian’s character almost at all, making it a good entry into the genre if it’s not usually your thing. It’s always fun and satisfying to still see all the characters from the previous books in the series. The book is marketed as standalone and you definitely don’t need to read the others in the series, but I do think you lose out on a lot in this installment by not having read the previous three books. It’s much harder to track who’s who (especially with all the S-named protagonists??) and the team dynamics are not quite fleshed out at all in this book. As a fan of the series, it’s fun and satisfying to see the hockey guys joking around and also supporting one another, but I do miss the stronger vibes in the book.

Surprisingly less trope-y than expected

Instead, the book focuses a lot on Scarlett and Kian’s family and other struggles and how it impacts their growing relationship. The book also reads as far less trope-y as others in the genre, even as it roughly follows the same type of pace and flow as a typical romance novel. I found that the relative lack of hockey and trope-y-ness did make it a slower read for me, even though I didn’t mind it. I admit that the tropes in Embrace already generally aren’t among my favorites, so the fact that it wasn’t super trope-y was kind of nice. I appreciated the emotional depth to both of them, even if I think their internal thoughts are a bit underutilized in some parts. (The book and their relationship and feelings towards one another started to feel tell more than show at times.)

I loved all the ways that they supported one and showed that support openly, showing up and being there for one another’s toughest moment. I loved that they weren’t perfect in confiding in one another but they tried their best, making them feel real and like real people. I loved the way the story took their public personas and showed where those personas were right, wrong, and maybe missing pieces of the puzzle. While so much of this work made the book feel slow, it also makes it feel more realistic.

Plot and pacing

At the same time, I found the plot to be quite lopsided and awkwardly paced, making it feel even slower, especially in the first half. The fact that Scarlett is Coach Kilner’s daughter does come up but doesn’t actually come across as a major issue in that she doesn’t actually seem to think about it all that much throughout a large portion of the book. The tutoring, while an important part of their story, also doesn’t ultimately feel like that big of a stake. Instead, her relationship with her birth father and his relationship with his sister and mother make up a bulk of the emotional weight of the story. At the same time, it felt awkwardly balanced throughout the book, like there would be times when one thing would be taking up a lot of space in the book and then it’d turn seemingly unimportant again. For example, the book starts with Scarlett’s situation with her birth father but then it kind of goes away as the book turns to her and Kian getting to know one another and then it suddenly becomes a huge part of the plot again. While I didn’t necessarily mind it, this did stick out in my mind while reading it – there were times I almost thought “what about this plot point and what’s going on on that front”?”

Final Thoughts

All in all, I enjoyed the book and appreciated its strengths, even as I missed some of the elements that I loved in the previous books (Scarlett and Kian also seemed way less banter-y than the other characters and had a very different dynamic). While it wasn’t a huge plot point and could at times largely be missed, it’s also nice to have two Asian American leads featured in a romance (Scarlett is Filipina and Kian is Japanese). For someone looking for a more traditional college hockey romance, this may not be the best fit, although I highly recommend the other books in the series. But I also think this could be a great gateway into it for others. Ultimately, I enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t a favorite and I don’t expect to reread it, but I’m glad we got Kian’s book and got to see a different side to him. I look forward to seeing what Bal Khabra writes next!