Customer Reviews

The Penalty Box (New York Blades)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Katie Fisher has been granted a year long sabbatical to write a book about sports and male identity. She is spending the year at her mother's home helping to care for her nephew. But home doesn't hold sweet memories for Katie. Her high-school experience was miserable. Known as a overweight brainiac, Katie was horribly teased. So when she finds out her mother signed her up to attend her tenth high-school reunion, Katie is horrified. Then she considers the opportunity to show her classmates the woman she has become. Slim, smart and successful, Katie attends the reunion ready to knock their socks off!

Hometown hero Paul van Dorn, former hockey star and current owner of The Penalty Box, uses his sports bar to relive his glory days. A series of concussions ended his major league hockey career. Coaching youth hockey is his only chance to get back onto the ice. Attending his ten year high-school reunion is an event he is looking forward to; a chance to see old friends and remember the good times.

When Paul and Katie meet at the reunion, sparks fly. Dating turns into quite the adventure! Maybe returning home is the best thing that ever happened to these two. But with Paul stuck in the past and Katie refusing to look back, do they have a future?

Although both Paul and Katie made me want to knock heads a few times, I thoroughly enjoyed The Penalty Box. While both Katie and Paul have their hang-ups that work against their relationship, I so wanted them to find happiness together. I identified completely with Katie's battle with her weight. And I could empathize with Paul's depression over the end of his career. Their battle to find happiness together despite the odds had me urging them to deal with their pasts!

Ms. Martin had me alternating between laughing and hissing. The dating mishaps had me laughing while cringing at the same time. The wicked past nemesis had me hissing not just at her, but at Paul as well. I love it when a book grabs my emotions that way. An engrossing read, The Penalty Box left me cheering at the end!

Annabelle
Reveiwed for Joyfully Reviewed

THE PENALTY BOX is the third in Martin's New York Blades hockey romance series and it's a big winner.

Katie Fisher lives everyone's fantasy when she returns to her small hometown's high school reunion transformed from an overweight, unpopular adolescent into a beautiful and brainy psychology professor. Katie's not just smart, she's hilarious, delivering the snappy comebacks we all wish we could come up with. Of course, she developed her humor back in those difficult high school days to compensate for her perceived inadequacies which she has never quite shaken off.

Paul Van Dorn also attends the reunion. Unlike Katie, he was the most popular guy in school since he was gorgeous and brilliantly talented athletically. He went on to a major league hockey career with the New York Blades which was cut short by a succession of serious injuries. He's gone back to his hometown to buy a sports bar, called The Penalty Box, where he can relive his past glory.

The chemistry between Katie and Paul is instant and exciting. Their verbal sparring keeps you laughing but also makes you stop and think. Katie's apparently successful adult identity is still riddled with the insecurities of her past to the point that she has a distorted view of the town she grew up in. Paul goes back home to assuage his anguish over losing the only career he's ever wanted, basking in the adulation of his old friends but living almost entirely on memories. This is a book about learning to embrace your past without letting it dominate your life.

Martin treats us to her deft grasp of the dynamics of family as Katie struggles to help her young nephew Tuck survive the trauma of having a mother, Katie's sister Mina, who's in and out of rehab. Tuck tugs at your heart and you find yourself rooting for his mother to get her life together. However, Martin does not minimize the difficulties of such a task, either for Mina or her family, making the book even more emotionally compelling.

THE PENALTY BOX gives us everything than Deirdre Martin does best: witty, laugh-out-loud dialogue, a hero we fall madly in love with, a heroine to root for, and plenty of emotion. I read this book in one day!

The last time I was as excited as I am now about the release of Deirdre Martin's "The Penalty Box," was at the start of this NHL season, after the dreadful year-long lockout! However, you don't have to be a sports fan, or know spit about hockey (the heroine certainly didn't!) to enjoy this book! I read this book as fast as I could and enjoyed it so much, that I had to go back for an instant and much slower re-read!

Katie Fisher is a college professor who has returned to her hometown for a year long paid sabbatical to write a book. While at home, she reluctantly attends her ten year high school reunion. Her reluctance is a result of her agonizing overweight teenage years. At the gala she is reunited with old "friends," tormentors and an old crush. The ex-crush, Paul van Dorn, is a pro-hockey player who has just retired, albeit not by his choice. Katie and Paul are both at the brink of major life changes and dealing with the myriad of emotions that arrive with such situations. They share an undeniable attraction to one another, but making a relationship work is not as easy as it might seem. Life has pushed them both through a full circle and back to their hometown... a very small town, with tongues and overgrown teenage terrors...

The book is touching, but fun, fast-paced, and incredibly well written. Between the great story, a charming cast of characters and refreshing twists to what could have otherwise easily been a predicable tale, this book is more real-life like than you'd expect. The hero might have been a superstar, but he is a normal guy in the book with issues that are neither too far-fetched, nor tabloid material. The heroine is witty enough to rival Austen's immortal Lizzie Bennett... Really!

Katie Fisher is back in her old hometown for a year to write a book about sports and the male identity. She had no intentions of going down memory lane. But her mom talks her into going to her old High School reunion. High school was not a good time for Katie, she was overweight, a brainiac and lived on the wrong side of town. However now she is a topnotch professor, has lost the weight and can afford anything. Katie doesn't expect to literally run into the high school jock, Paul van Dorn.

Paul van Dorn is back in Didsbury after one to many concussions sidelines his promising NHL career permanently. He had opened a bar called The Penalty Box and is reliving his glory days with the Blades. Paul has agreed to be a coach to the youth hockey team that Katie's nephew Tuck is a member.

Both Katie and Paul have issues from their past and present to get past. Katie's main concern is for her nephew that her mom is helping to raise while her sister is in rehab. This concern leads her to take an active role in Tucks life and putting her in almost daily contact with Paul.

Paul and Katie realize they have a connection and start an affair. But while Paul wants to celebrate it, Katie wants to keep it quiet.

Can these two overcome their past to forge a future?

The Penalty Box is another jewel by Deirdre Martin. Her books take hold of your heart from page one and you are drawn in long after the story is over. Katie and Paul feel like people you would like to know and their problems are real life ones. It's another keeper.

I just finished my copy of the The Penalty Box and read it in one day, it was so good! It is the best one yet that Ms. Martin has put out there. The characters are so real and make you laugh out loud (and if you are from a small town, it will be that much more so!). I highly recommend picking this book up, it is a great read!

After a crazy week with too much to do, I picked up The Penalty Box on my way home from a workshop I was teaching. I needed something to read that would be light and refreshing. With a husband who coaches youth hockey, I thoroughly enjoyed the theme and the comparisions. Deirdre was on target with her hockey information. The main character, Katie, was a delight with a wonderful sense of humor that had me chuckling time and again and she suffers from something most women do--trying to keep the weight off. Most of us can connect to Katie's plight. This is the first book I've read by this author, however, I plan to read her other ones. This was such a fun read on a wintry night.

Former heavyweight Katie reluctantly attends her high school reunion. Treated like a leper by the more popular students, she has lost a lot of weight, gone to college, and is now at home helping her mom take care of her nephew and on a sabbatical writing a book about the sociology of sports. Most of the people she meets at the reunion are apologetic about the way they treated her until nemesis Liz Flaherty makes an appearance and is still as snotty and childish as ever. As Katie leaves the party, she manages to capture the attention of fellow former student Paul Van Dorn, who has returned home after a career-ending head injury cut his NHL career short. Paul is still having difficulty coming to terms with his present as a bar owner and moving on from his past glory days.

Paul is flattered when he is asked to coach a local hockey team, until he finds out that it is the juniors - 9 to 10 year olds who know little about the sport but love to skate. But in Katie's nephew Tuck, he finds raw talent. When Katie finally succumbs to Paul's charms (after a very horrific but funny first date), she fears that people will assume Tuck has gotten ice time because of her. Tuck is currently motherless as his mom is in a detox center. When she gets out, he wants to stay with Katie but mom Mina has other thoughts, and often Tuck is not a priority in her misguided life. Katie would love nothing more than to be a bigger part of Tuck's life.

The biggest obstacle in the relationship is the fact that Paul is so committed to his past, while Katie would rather never think about the worst period of her life. And of course Liz is waiting in the wings to wreak additional havoc on Katie's life. Will these two ever be able to find some middle ground?

Martin redeems herself after last year's abysmal "Total Rush" with a compelling and romantic story about second chances both in life and love. The result is a tempting tale!

I loved it! I am a fan of all the books she has written and have read all 2-3 times. I just could not put The Penalty Box down. I constantly wanted to know where it was going to go! Can't wait until her next book!

Bravo! Once again Deirdre Martin gives us a heroine that we're rooting for from the first sentence. Katie makes us her friend the minute she has to react to her mother's well intended faux paux that sets off a great story, romance and journey with people you feel you know. It almost makes me wish I'd gone to my high school reunion....well, glad Katie did it for us.

I don't usually do this sort of thing, but I have been fan of Deirdre Martin's since her first book came out , and have been reading her faithfully since. This last book was so good that I just had to write . Thank you Ms.Martin , for giving your faithful readers another dose of your witty dialogue, your uplifting romance, and your eye for real-life situations that we all can relate to.