Royally Pucked by Pippa Grant

What do you do with a spare royal heir when he's acting up? Manning Frey's family moves him to the United States where he is on a professional hockey team. He doesn't mean to knock up Gracie Diamonte but he's not exactly upset about it. Except that he's technically sort of engaged. 

Gracie isn't thrilled to be pregnant but that's what life is. She finds Manning incredibly charming but isn't ready to believe that he is read to settle down with a woman like her, she barely graduated high school and is from nowheresville Alabama.

Not as fun as other books from Pippa Grant but still a fast read and enjoyable enough to finish.

Three stars

This book came out April 6, 2018

The Copper Valley Thrusters #2

Follows Pilot & the Puck-up

Followed by Beauty & the Beefcake

Royals #1

Followed by Rockaway Bride

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as audible book December 2025

The Grumpy Player Next Door by Pippa Grant

Tillie Jean Rock is the sister of baseball superstar (well, at least he's really well known in Copper Valley) Cooper Rock. She got involved with one of his teammates ONCE and now her brother is paranoid about her seeing anyone else. Sure, she flirts with most of them but they all know it's not serious. The only one who might reasonably hold her interest is Max Cole but he's avoiding her because Cooper is his best friend on the team and he doesn't want to screw up that relationship. Plus, he had a really complicated childhood and doesn't want to inflict his angst on to anyone else. 

But Max has moved next door to Tillie Jean in the off season and suddenly the close proximity means all bets are off...

One of my least favorite tropes is the "we can't date because you're my sibling's friend." And this book leans hard into Cooper not taking their relationship well. Grant tries to turn it around and make the prank war between Tillie Jean and her siblings amp up because of it but it didn't really click for me. Also, I never really saw that Max was trying to work through his issues with romance. In a romance novel. I wish we had seen more introspection and working toward healing from his crappy childhood but it mostly seemed magically resolved. 

Three stars

This book came out July 8th, 2021

Copper Valley Fireballs #3

Follows Real Fake Love

Followed by Irresistible Trouble

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as Audible book December 2025

Beauty and the Beefcake by Pippa Grant

We've met Ares Berger in previous books in the series. He's tall. He's a brute. He doesn't talk very much. Nor do we see him talk a lot in this book. But Felicity Murphy talks enough for both of them. She's a talented ventriloquist and incredibly smart but (according to her parents) hasn't quite figured out what she wants to do with her life. Many Master's Degrees but she hasn't found a job. Partly because she hasn't found her niche but mostly because her life goal is to work for the Thrusters, the team her brother Nick and Ares both play for. Well, usually. Right now Ares is out with a severely sprained ankle. So Nick volunteers their grandmother's house as a place for him to recuperate knowing that, not only is Felicity studying to be a physical therapist thus being valuable to Ares, but she could use some muscle to protect her from a stalker-ish ex-boyfriend.
Not as good as other books in the series; Ares is fun and Felicity is fine but why the focus on the men that she attracts. So much attention paid to that. Still crazy pants on the Grant level but the fun just isn't quite there

Three and a half stars

Copper Valley Thrusters #3

Follows Royally Pucked

Followed by Charming as Puck

This book came out May 17th, 2018

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle Unlimited ebook October 2024, as Audible book December 2025

The Pilot & the Puck-Up by Pippa Grant

This book is... I'm having trouble describing it. It's the best kind of bat crap crazy. Zeus Berger is one of the famous Berger twins who tear up the hockey rink. We meet him as he enters a club wearing a tight skirt, high heels, and a girdle. I think it's because there's a bet? But it may just be that he wants to shock all of the people who are trying to show off how much money they've donated before participating in a golf tournament the next day. And Zeus, wearing heels, clocks in at over seven feet so he is a sight to behold. When he is dared to pick up a woman, his friends point out Joey Diamonte.

Introducing herself as Fireball, Joey is at this fundraiser under duress. She's not normally the front person for her zero gravity company, she's the pilot. But Peach has to be at her grandmother's surgery so Joey is at this incredibly boring charity event, trying to drum up an investor who will help take her company to the next level. And she thinks Chase Jett might be that man; but his friend Zeus keeps distracting her. The man is HOT.

The shenanigans in this book start from the opening page and just continue from there including ordering pizza in to the fundraiser, golfing with cans, and more. If you need something to read that is bananapants but still somehow makes you care about the character, this is your book.

Four stars

The Copper Valley Thrusters #1

This book came out February 16th, 2018

Followed by Royally Pucked

Ebook borrowed from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread from Kindle Unlimited October 2024, as Audible book December 2025

Real Fake Love by Pippa Grant

I'm not sure what it was about this book that captured my attention so much but I stayed up way to late reading it. Actually, I think it was just the sheer zaniness of it. I didn't love the heroine, "Henri" Henrietta Bacon, as she was just a little too peripatetic in her thought process and the flips often threw me out of the story. However, her manic-pixie-dream-girl-ness is updated a little bit by showing what that kind of chaos can leave in it's wake (for her, five broken engagements) and how that can wear on a person. For Henri, she decides it's time to learn how not to fall in love. And, she decides that her latest fiance's childhood best friend is the perfect person to learn from.

Professional baseball player Luca Rossi just wants to play the game, hopefully in the same place for more than a year or two. He definitely doesn't want to fall in love but his Nona (who is famous on TikTok) shows up in his kitchen the morning after Henri shows up on his front steps. And she's making her ziti which, everyone in her family knows is a part of putting the Eye on someone and that person will then fall in love. And woe to those who try to avoid it. 

Luca did have some flaws but, on the whole, he did lean a little bit toward too-good-to-be-true.

Overall, a fun story that was just a bit fluffy but still really fun to read.

Four stars

Follows Jock Blocked

Followed by The Grumpy Player Next Door

This book came out September 3rd, 2020

Borrowed as ebook from Kindle Unlimited

Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle ebook October 2024, Reread as Audible book December 2025

Jock Blocked by Pippa Grant

The entire story is based on the heroine trying to cock block the hero because she is really, really, really superstitious about her team winning. I'm going to be honest, if it hadn't been Pippa Grant, I probably would have stopped reading. The heroine irritated me and there was a LOT of tell not show.
Mackenzie knows something that not a lot of people know, Brooks Elliot, famous baseball player, is a virgin at 30.  And she knows (yeah...) that that is what makes him a good baseball player. She's ecstatic that he's been traded to the Fireballs but when she hears that he wants to lose his V-card, she immediately decides that she is going to make sure he doesn't. While she's dressed as a meatball because she is stealing one of the costumes of the current options to replace her beloved Fiery the dragon as the Fireballs mascot. Which she then steals and sends on adventures.

Three stars

Followed by Real Fake Love
This book came out May 19th, 2020
Borrowed from Kindle Unlimited
Opinions are my own

Reread as Audible book December 2025

Charming as Puck by Pippa Grant

Kami Oakley has loved Nick Murphy for a long time. But he's off limits, not just because he's her brother's friend but also because he's a player; he'll never settle down. And the latest incident has just proved it. His hockey team has a history of playing pranks on each other but they've started including animals. And Kami, as a softhearted veterinarian, is often the one cleaning up after their messes. Even though she's been hooking up with Nick for awhile now, she's just realized that he's never going to be serious about her.
Nick is startled when Kami leaves. Even more so that she left his teammate's prank cow behind. He gets that she's mad at him so he decides to make it up to her.
Not my favorite Pippa Grant. It was still fun but there was so much pranking that it got redundant. And I sort of get Kami's anger but... Nick never promised her anything. And she knows he's bad at things like remembering birthdays. Like, how much can you expect?

Three stars

This book came out February 1st, 2019

Copper Valley Thrusters #3

Follows Beauty and the Beefcake

Followed by I Pucking Love You
Borrowed this book from Kindle Unlimited
Opinions are my own

Reread as Kindle Unlimited ebook October 2024, as Audible book December 2025