Rating: 3 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Alonso was always destined to play hockey, but hockey is an Alpha’s game. When Alonso presented as an Omega, his Alpha father would not hear of it and Alonso has been on suppressants ever since. Alonso finally has his chance at a professional hockey team and he has to keep his secret closely guarded—which might not be that easy around his new teammate and roommate, Levy.
Alonso can’t even think about being attracted to anyone, let alone being attracted to Levy, as all of Alonso’s energy goes into hiding who he is. But when Levy goes into rut and Alonso’s suppressants fail, Alonso’s secret is out. But Levy only wants to be Alonso’s friend and, if his Alpha instincts kick up when they are together, Levy certainly can’t help that. But the men grow closer as teammates and as friends until their heat gets the best of them. Alonso doesn’t want to hold Levy back, since he can never be the partner that Levy needs, but Levy may have something to say about that.
One of the more recent romance trends is Alpha and Omegas on ice. While the premise can be interesting, there needs to be the world building and the hockey to hold it all together, and Fresh Ice didn’t have all of that.
Alonso has not had an easy life growing up. When his Alpha father refused to live with the fact that he has an Omega son, Alonso was put on suppressants that make him sick. His father never has a pleasant word to say to him and Alonso’s Omega mother does nothing. Yet, Alonso’s father was not a well-developed character and came off as the caricature of an abusive parent.
There is no world building here and the Alphas and Omegas are just there as part of society with zero explanation. There is also not a lot of nuance to the hockey play and it read more like hockey from Wikipedia than any true game of hockey.
Alonso and Levy are said to be attracted to each other, but I never really felt that and even when they were in heat, there was not a lot of that warming the pages. The focus of the story is Alonso hiding that he is an Omega, as there is discrimination against them in the hockey league to the point that no Omegas reveal who they are. There are many side characters and not all of them serve a purpose.
There were a few storylines here and none of them had the depth or the world building I was looking for. Alonso and Levy are left in a HFN situation and this book was left with a “to be continued” storyline that might not have enough depth to hold my interest into a second book.
