Sterling

Delaney Foster’s Sterling sits in the contemporary sports romance lane that has been growing across recent years. The hero plays professional hockey. The heroine has her own life and isn’t interested in being a hockey wife or in being impressed by his career.

The initial conflict is real. He’s used to people wanting things from him. She doesn’t, which throws him off in ways he wasn’t expecting. The middle of the book is the slow recalibration as both of them figure out what they actually want from each other.

Foster’s prose is clean and the pacing is steady. The on-ice scenes are convincingly written without overwhelming readers who don’t follow the sport.

For readers who like Elsie Silver’s Chestnut Springs series or Liz Tomforde’s hockey romances, this is in similar territory. Comfortable reading for the genre’s audience, with character work that goes deeper than the cover might suggest.