Synopsis:
ZANDERS
Chicago hockey isn’t complete without me – everyone’s favourite player to hate. I know my role, and I play it well. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy spending the majority of my game time in the penalty box before leaving the arena with a new girl on my arm each night.
What I don’t like is the new flight attendant on our team’s private plane. She works for me, not the other way around. But I’ll be sure to remind her of that, and I can guarantee, by the end of the season, she’ll be begging to quit her job.
But every road trip blurs the lines, and I can’t quite figure out if I keep pushing that flight attendant call button in order to push her buttons, or if it’s more than that.
STEVIE
I’ve been a flight attendant for years. I thought I’d seen it all, but when my new job lands me onboard working for the most egotistical and self-righteous diva in the NHL, I start to second guess everything. Including the promise I made to myself of never hooking up with an athlete again . . . no matter how annoyingly tempting he may be.
Evan Zanders is unfiltered, unapologetic, and too attractive for his own good. He loves his image, but I hate everything about it.
Everything but him.
Genre: Contemporary Sports Romance
Tropes:
- Hockey Romance
- Enemies To Lovers
- Forced Proximity
- Workplace Romance
Liz Tomforde was a new author that came across my radar, late 2023 due to her rise in popularity on TikTok.
As always, I have to join a hype, so I added The Windy City Series to my TBR jar and the first book in the series, Mile High, was the third pick from my TBR jar of January.
Mile High follows Chicago NHL hockey player Evan Zanders as he plays cross country games that showcase his bad boy persona. When his team takes on a new airline charter company, Zanders meets sassy flight attendant Stevie Shay, who he loves to loathe and who will be with him for the full playing season.
Immediately there’s friction between the pair, as Stevie is all too familiar with the playboy reputation that Zanders sports and has no interest in falling for another man like that. Being well aware of her dislike towards him, Zanders makes it his mission to irritate the flight attendant, knowing well of her dislike to him. Only the game that he initiates complicates things for Zanders, where he can’t seem to stay away from the feisty flight attendant. As the two continue interacting on their flights, Stevie realises that there is a great and loving guy, beneath Zander’s cocky exterior.
The friction they share quickly turns to sexual tension, where Zanders offers Stevie one night together in which he believes will help them get over the sexual tension they share. Only that one night wasn’t enough for them both, resulting in Zanders to realise that Stevie could be the one he shed’s his playboy persona for.
Given her history with her ex boyfriend, who is also in the sports playing business, Stevie is reluctant to allow anything to develop with Zanders; due to her ex using her as a second option.
As Stevie works for the airline that Zanders travels on, the pair are unable to stay away from each other – leading to them to develop a relationship in secret. Their relationship must be kept a secret as Stevie’s job has a no fraternising with the sports team, that could lead her to be fired if caught breaking the rules and Zanders has a playboy persona to upkeep in order to secure a resigning with the Chicago Raptors at the end of the hockey season.
The pair are pulled close with their shared history of family trauma. Zanders with the abandonment of his mother, which results in the breakdown of his relationship with his father – leading him to develop the idea he is unlovable and therefore needs to continue the playboy persona his fans love. Stevie with her opinionated, negative and unsupportive mother, who at any opportunity, will always have negative jabs at her daughter about her weight, lack of love life and unapproved lifestyle.
The pair continue to navigate their secret relationship, only Zanders begins feeling the pressure from his agent about not being presented with a resigning deal with the raptors, as his agent believes it’s because he’s pulled back on his big playboy persona since embarking on his secret relationship. Zanders stands firm on his decision to pull back from his bad boy persona, until his agent secretly tips off the paparazzi outside his apartment, where they end up catching Zanders and Stevie together. Being aware of Stevie’s insecurities and wanting to stay out of the public eye, Zanders decided to end their relationship in order to protect her and to allow himself to continue the bad boy persona, to deal a resigning deal. The pair are unable to live with the breakup, resulting in Stevie to consider moving away to avoid the memories Chicago brings of her time with Zanders – the apartment, her job and ultimately the dog shelter she volunteered at.
When learning of this, Zanders is desperate to persuade her to stay, whilst continuing their separate journeys.
While on his own journey, Zanders cuts ties with his toxic agent, who is responsible for the playboy persona he grew to dislike. During his reflection, he ends his relationship with his estranged mother once and for all, leading him to repair the damage done with his father. It is after cutting these ties and repairing relationships, that Zanders finally realises that he is capable and worthy of love, therefore he decides to go full force with Stevie.
In the end, it is revealed that Zanders’ agent deliberately withheld his new hockey deal for months, in order for Zanders to continue his playboy persona, which would ultimately allow his agent to get more money from tipping off the paparazzi and having the inside scoop. Zanders continues to play for the Chicago raptors, alongside his best friend Maddison and learns that his fans love him more for his real self than the fabricated lie.
I think this is the longest it’s taken me to read a book. I was expecting it to take me a lil longer to finish this book as opposed to my others, due to the hefty amount of pages (603 – whaaat, in comparison to my average 300), but I wasn’t expecting it to take me this long. It took me 8 days to finish this book and there are a number of reasons.
1. Work – I say this all the time; when I’m back to work, I always find it hard to continue reading a book I’ve started over the weekend. When I come home from work, I’m exhausted and find myself craving a 3 hour nap over reading. I’ve even tried reading over the 3 hour nap and I just find it so uninteresting, where I’m counting down the pages to the end of the chapter, so that I can nap. I also find if I do read over napping, I’m not taking in the words I’m reading, so I’m just as better off not attempting. Then there’s the whole, when I do nap and choose to read afterwards, I’ve got that post nap grogginess that leaves no interest in reading. It’s safe to say I was so tired after work during the week I read this, that I just couldn’t will myself to pick up my kindle.
2. The book length/emotional attachment to the characters? – I feel like I had no emotional connection to the characters I was reading about, so equally along with post-work exhaustion, I had no interest to delve into the story of characters I wasn’t emotionally invested in. I think initially I was interested in reading about the characters, but I think the story just became so dragged out that I began to loose interest and therefore, didn’t have motivation to read. I 100% think this book could’ve been condensed into less than 300 pages.
As for the characters themselves, I liked the inclusion of a plus size character, but I felt like that was made to be Stevie’s whole personality. It was repeated a lot and I don’t relate to being plus sized, so maybe that’s why it felt repetitive because I didn’t resonate with the way the female character feels. I did feel like it was a constant theme and at times, I wanted to roll my eyes at yet another mention. As well as this, I also got sick of the repetition of Zanders’ chain and tattoos mentioned by Stevie. Both of these felt like they were mentioned everychapter and for Zanders, these weren’t pointed out to add detail of what his tattooed looked like. They were simply added to point out he had them. Before I went into reading this, I was aware that the characters were portrayed as people of colour, but I really struggled to envision Stevie and Zanders as POC.
Overall, I think my lack of loving this book as much as I was expecting, comes from how slow and dragged out the storyline was. It got to the point where I was reading it and at points I was thinking “come on, get to the point”. I wouldn’t say I was at a point of considering DNFing the book, but the plot didn’t have me grasped and I think because of that, I wasn’t able to read it as quick as other books. I don’t even think I could ever DNF a book. I’d always want to know what happened and if it got better, just like I don’t think I could ever DNF a series based on one book I’ve read because I’d always have thoughts that the series could get better – I have experienced this with the Dreamland Billionaire Series.
I’ve seen the other books of the Windy City series are of the same thickness in physical form, which I’m slightly dreading – but I am keen to read the next story, which I suspect will be about Stevie’s brother and her flight attendant friend, Indy, in their roommate journey.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Georgia
♥
