Review: The Risk by Elle Kennedy

The Risk is the second book in Elle Kennedy’s Briar U series. This book features Brenna Jensen and hockey hot-shot Jake Connelly who happens to play for Briar’s rival, Harvard. He is enemy #1. Unfortunately, Brenna is also very attracted to him. She would never act on it but when Jake gets one of his hockey players to end his relationship with Brenna, well, she is livid. No one controls her sex life. Game on!

Jake is definitely attracted to Brenna. But he is also committed to hockey and nothing is going to break his stride when it comes to winning it all this year. Next year, he’ll be playing for the Edmonton Oilers so he really wants to end his Harvard career on top. And if that means no distractions for his teammates, that means the same to him too. That is, until Brenna comes to him needing a small favor. She claimed Jake is her boyfriend to help grease the wheels for an internship she is anxious to get. It won’t guarantee her the job by any means but it will definitely impress the man interviewing her. Only, Jake has requirements of his own. He wants a real date with Brenna, the woman he cannot get out of his head.

Thus, these two begin risky, covert assignations with each other. Brenna’s father is the coach of Briar U’s hockey team so there is no way on earth he would be happy to discover she is seeing Jake. And well, her friends, many of them hockey players, would feel the same. Will these two get their heads on straight before they hurt their friends?

The Risk is just pure romantic deliciousness. Jake and Brenna truly scorch the pages in all their encounters. It does not have to be sexy times to feel the heat between Jake and Brenna. There is just this special punch of emotion between them that was noticeable in the first book in the Briar U series (The Chase) but now it has exploded tenfold. There is heat, there is caring, and there is fun flirtation between these two.

I also enjoyed the character development in other ways. Brenna in particular has a rough relationship with her father due to something in her past. Neither has ever been able to really talk about it so when Brenna is forced to move into her dad’s house after her apartment floods, well, things are a bit strained between them. I was pleased to see these two find ways to open up to each other.

Brenna is saucy and funny and sarcastic. She is a great companion and foil to Jake who has many of these same qualities. When they are together, there is softening of their edges as they realizes they have met someone likeminded.

Elle Kennedy always does a great job of creating a satisfying and spectacular romance but I must say, Brenna and Jake really do surpass many of my previous favorite Kennedy couples in leaps and bounds. Their relationship is just molten hot.

The Risk is available today! It is another great romance from the Elle Kennedy canon!

Tagged: Elle Kennedy