Maggie Rawdon is ringing in this holiday season with a why choose hockey romance that’s sure to grab your attention from the start!
What is Lords of Misrule by Maggie Rawdon about?
I was a good girl all year long. Would have made it to the top of Santa’s list.
But when three men in masks offer to team up to steal the same rare paintings I need to save my brother, I’m desperate enough to risk it all.
Did I mention they’re also the hockey team’s infamous star players—feared across campus and ready to raise hell this holiday season against some of the same people I am?
Christmas might be coming early for me.
The only problem is—the team captain and I? We hate each other.
And pulling off this little holiday heist means we all have to cozy up under the same roof.
But if getting everything I ever wished for this year means a little teamwork with a few masked men, can you really blame me for signing up for a stocking stuffed full of coal?
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Review:
Going in, I knew that this would be a shift from Maggie’s other books that I’ve read…and I was right. I love her football sports romances (Plays & Penalties series, and her Seattle Phantom series), so when I heard she was writing a holiday hockey sports romance, I knew I absolutely had to read it!
This isn’t your typical hockey holiday romance, though. Right off the bat, this one was darker, grittier, and all in a good way. Told across four (!!) POVs, we get to see the story play out through Charlotte, Finn, Rowan, and Hudson’s eyes.
Rowan, Finn, and Hudson are college hockey players, but unlike most college hockey players in romance books, they’re not really banking on the NHL to make them rich after college. They have a…questionable side hustle, and when it threatens the long con that Charlotte is working on, the four of them become entangled in ways they never thought of before.
I especially recommend this book if you’re looking for these tropes:
- Why choose (MFMM reverse harem)
- Masked men
- Sports romance (hockey romance)
- Holiday themed
- Forced proximity
- Found family
- He falls first
- Enemies to Lovers
I really liked how distinct the boys were from each other, and how differently her relationships developed with each of them. (I gotta say, I was Team Finn from the get-go, but the beauty of a why choose romance is exactly that…there is no choosing!) I loved how Charlotte could hold her own against them, and had no trouble putting them in their place, which was obviously something they weren’t used to experiencing. She wasn’t afraid of going for what she wants, even when she was working all alone. Although her methods might not have been completely conventional, I admired her tenacity and determination against everything she came up against.
This book definitely had me hooked right from the get-go, and I didn’t want to put it down.
As with most new adult romances, I highly recommend this one for 18+ due to the various mature content. But also as always, don’t let me tell you what to do.
Overall, this was definitely a shift from the holiday romances I typically read (interestingly enough, the previous book I read was also a forced proximity hockey romance, but the similarities end there), and it was a fun shift. I was slightly (very slightly) apprehensive going in to this book because her other books had set the bar so high, but I definitely wasn’t disappointed! I’m eagerly anticipating whatever Maggie has next for us to read.
Special thanks to Maggie and Wordsmith Publicity for allowing me to read an early copy and participate in the blog tour! “Lords of Misrule” is out now.
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Reviews of Maggie Rawdon’s books:
“Personal Foul” (Plays & Penalties #3) — ARC
“Reverse Pass” (Plays & Penalties #4) — ARC
“Pick Six” (Seattle Phantom Football #1) — ARC
“Overtime” (Seattle Phantom Football #2) — coming soon
buried in a bookshelf 