*I was given an ARC of Revolve in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Bloomsbury and Bal Khabra for my copy of the book*
Synopsis:
He’s a wild card. She’s a seasoned pro. Together, they might just be the perfect match in this sweeping romance between a figure skater and hockey player from the bestselling author of Collide.
If you loved Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, you’ll love this…
Sierra Romanova was an Olympic figure skater before a life-altering accident left her with panic attacks every time she enters the rink. Now, back for her final year at Dalton University, she’s ready to reclaim the spotlight.
Kicked off his hockey team for reckless behaviour, Dylan Donovan has little to no chance of making it to the National Hockey League draft. But Dylan’s whole world revolves around the ice so, if hockey is forbidden, at least there’s figure skating.
When Sierra finds herself in desperate need of a new partner, the only person who can match her skill is none other than the cocky hockey player who refuses to cut her any slack.
On the ice, their chemistry is electric. But can they stand the heat off the rink?
Review:
Revolve was my first book by Bal Khabra and it absolutely won’t be my last. I absolutely devoured this book. I’m not sure why I always expect a hockey/skating romance to be absolute cringe but this book couldn’t be further from that.
These characters had so much depth. I love a romance book with characters that aren’t one-dimensional and both Dylan and Sierra had a lot going on. Their backgrounds, quirks and connection were built really well throughout the entire book and the progression of their relationship felt realistic.
I also can’t tell you how refreshing it is to read a romance book with basically no miscommunication and no third act break up. We love a non-toxic relationship, especially in a sports romance. I feel like a lot of them have toxic masculinity, but these boys couldn’t be further from that. My worry with Dylan switching to figure skating was that his hockey teammates would make fun of him, but nope, they were all like ‘this is cool, we’ll support you’.
I especially loved Kian, who was so unapologetically himself. I really hope he gets his own book. We need more Kian in our lives, and I’m sure if you check out Revolve you’ll feel the same. He was so sweet but also unintentionally funny.
I really didn’t expect to love this as much as I did. I’ve never given a sports romance book five stars before, but Revolve completely stole my heart. I read most of this book in one sitting as I didn’t want to put it down. I needed to know what would happen between Sierra and Dylan, who I LOVED together, and the skating competitions.
As someone that used to skate when I was younger, it was great to finally read a book about figure skating that actually describes the routines with the proper terms. I could visualise the routines so vividly and don’t get me started on the fact that they are dressed as Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder. I wasn’t sure if that was intentional on the cover or not, but turns out it is and there are multiple references to Tangled throughout Revolve.
Back to Sierra and Dylan. They were wonderful. The witty bickering and mean banter was incredible. This was such a brilliant way of showing how their relationship progressed from ‘I find you ridiculously annoying’ to ‘I don’t want to spend time with anyone but you’. As I said previously, the progression of their relationship felt very natural.
Their character development was also wonderful to witness. Without giving too much away, Dylan changes his old ‘playboy’ ways and Sierra slowly overcomes serious trauma and it comes down to the connection they build on and off the ice. I don’t know, it’s just nice to have a romance book with fleshed out characters whose sole purpose is not to ‘get it on every other chapter’. Which there is a lot of, but a lot of these scenes are pretty beautiful. Especially as Sierra comes to love herself again after her accident. Dylan may genuinely be one of my favourite book boyfriends, which I did not think I’d be saying at the start of Revolve.
I’m not sure if I’ve done a very good job of explaining why I loved Revolve so much, but I don’t want to get too rambly so I’ll be leaving my review here. I have the other two books in this series, so I will 100% be checking those out at some point. Nothing makes me happier than finding a romance author with genuinely good books.
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