The Good Luck Charm needs polish, but has a good message

The emotional journey at the heart of The Good Luck Charm is basically about setting boundaries, and that’s an important theme.

The Good Luck Charm is one of the first sports romances that yours truly has ever read, so props to Forever for getting me to wade in the waters of a genre I usually leave alone. The thing is, the book isn’t necessarily about hockey; it’s certainly set dressing, though. Whether or not main character Ethan will even have a job in the NHL at the end of the season doesn’t really carry that much in the way of tension, though.

What did actually grab this reader’s interest is how Lilah realizes that Ethan is basically taking her life over, and that she takes steps to change that. The romance seems pretty inevitable; Helena Hunting’s writing is fine, if not awe-inspiring, since there are some mixed metaphors and clunky sentences; some of the other plot points seem really contrived.

With all that in mind, though, that point, where Lilah takes control of her life after a boundary-crossing incident, is really good. Life is messy and complicated, and Hunting seems to get this with Lilah’s attempts to balance everything. Lilah puts those boundaries back down firmly instead of bending back and letting him take over again.

Is it worth soldiering the first two-thirds of the book? Well, that’s up to each individual reader. It’s not like there isn’t some good chemistry between Lilah and Ethan, and since the two are former high school sweethearts who had their relationship cut off by that pesky NHL, fans of that subgenre will enjoy the story. Sports romance lovers might wish for more of the actual sport in question, but to be fair, Ethan isn’t an NHL superstar; he’s instead playing to stay in the league.

At the end of the day, The Good Luck Charm has the potential to play on the first line of sports romance. Instead, to continue the hockey metaphor, it could have used some time on the third or fourth lines to really get seasoned.