Mile High
By: Liz Tomforde
Published Year: 2022
Publisher: Hodder
Pages: 603
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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.
First Impressions
I adore the original cover. That’s how I was first introduced to this series. I don’t love the updated covers. I feel like they’re very boring. I heard a lot of positive things about this series and was excited to read it. Once I found out it was going to be made into a series it jumped to the top of my list.
What I thought
I loved Zander and Stevie, but did ultimately have some issues with the conflicts of this story.
Zanders is the top defenseman for Chicago’s hockey team. Stevie is the sister of one of Chicago’s best basketball players and flight attendant on Zanders’ team plane. She has vowed that she would never date an athlete but then she and Zanders keep ending up in the same places on game road trips. Problem is, Zanders has to uphold a bad boy player persona and Stevie isn’t allowed to fraternize with the players. So how are they going to deal with the undeniable chemistry?
So like I said, I loved Zanders and Stevie. I thought their chemistry was great and I loved how they made each other better. Zanders helped Stevie work through all of her body image issues and build her confidence, while Stevie helped Zanders to work through his trauma. I also loved Stevie’s twin brother Ryan who is the male main character for the next book.
What bothered me about this book was Zanders’ storyline. When he first joined Chicago, his agent sold the idea that he was a bad boy/ladies’ man and hi bet friend was the good guy who was married. They’ve kept this image up for 6 years and it hasn’t bothered Zanders until he met Stevie. That’s not the part that bothered me. The part that got on my nerves is that he is currently in a signing year and he seems to believe that if he loses this ladies’ man image that the team won’t want to re-sign him and the city will hate him. This made zero sense to me. If anything, I feel like it would be the opposite when it comes to being signed by an athlete. But ultimately, if you’re providing results then no one cares.
It just got a little old and I was very frustrated with it and with Zanders but the end of the book. I also felt like his agent was a little mustache twirly for my liking. I wish the third act breakup had been less to do with Zanders’ image but I know it made sense. Unfortunately, his storyline is what made me drop this book down a star. I really liked the beginning of the tory but then just found myself getting annoyed as it went on. Maybe if it had been a little shorter?
This is a solid sports romance. It’s not one of my favorites, but it built a world I’m excited to continue with. I’m also really excited about this becoming a TV show. I think there is less that I am emotionally attached to than I was with The Deal, so if they make some changes it will bother me less. I also have to remind myself that this is Tomforde’s debut novel, so I’m hopeful that these books will only get better as they go on.