I enjoyed this one, for the most part. I missed one of the previous novels, but I remember Issac, and Misha and Max.

Laurent's tragic backstory/current story as this begins is compelling enough to keep his motives clear and maintain my sympathy. Isaac is just the guy to wrestle him into being a better human, eventually. The therapy felt genuine, the team stuff felt genuine, so a lot of this worked great for me.

The one thing that was just wrong is when a teammate asks Isaac if Laurent is gay, and Isaac says no, he's demisexual. I am demi, and het. They absolutely go together because all demi means is we require emotional attachment before we fall in love. No instalove for us.

The other parts that fell a bit short are spoilers and in 202o, I can't care much about them. I think this needed one more copy-edit, although it's mostly well done, just a few unclear conversations that needed one or two surnames to keep clarity, and a typo, and a little unnecessary repetition.

My favorite side character is the landlady! :) ( )

I have enjoyed this series a lot. This one is still very good, but goes a bit darker than the earlier stories. The first 2 in the series are almost pure fluff, very little conflict and lovely happy endings. While book 3 has some characters with troubled pasts there is still not too much angst. However in Empty Net you need to prepare for more angst as one of the characters in this one is dealing with past abuse from his father and an eating disorder.

Following on from the last book in the series, this novel focuses on Isaac Drake, the goalie, when the maverick GM acquires another goalie from the team that defeated them in the playoffs and who comes across as a nasty piece of work. But Isaac soon learns that there's much more to Laurent than that. ( )