Book Review: Face Off by Chelsea Curto
Hockey gods, filthy mouths, and locker-room steam. A smutty, sweaty, unserious delight.
Peaches’ Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ — Hot & Bothered, sweaty in the best way.
Tropes: Sports romance, grumpy/sunshine, forced proximity, dirty talk Olympics.
Trigger warnings: Explicit sex, public play, slut-shaming from side characters.
Listen, sometimes we don’t want emotional devastation. Sometimes we don’t want to unpack anyone’s childhood trauma or cry into a pillow about generational wounds. Sometimes we just want to be pinned against the boards by a giant hockey god who cannot keep his stick (or his filthy mouth) to himself. And that’s exactly why Face Off earned its place in our Smut Girl Summer lineup. It’s unserious, filthy, and unapologetically fun — a smutty snack you can inhale in one sitting and feel zero guilt about.
The set-up is classic, and we love her for it: cocky athlete with a filthy mouth, heroine who swears she’s immune to his fame but absolutely not his forearms, and enough sexual tension to melt the entire rink. The energy between them is fast, bantery, and charged — that irresistible push-and-pull that makes you kick your feet under the covers and scream into your pillow.
Do we get locker-room steam? Yes, and it is gloriously sweaty. Do we get dirty talk so unhinged you’ll have to put your Kindle down and fan yourself? Absolutely. Do we get multiple “oh, he’s so big” moments that make you want to text your bestie “send me a hockey player immediately”? Darling, of course we do.
What I love most about this one is that it doesn’t try to be something it isn’t. It’s not here to break your heart or rewire your soul. It’s here to make you laugh, squirm, and maybe consider buying season tickets. Compared to the darker chaos of our other Smut Girl Summer picks, Face Off was the palate cleanser we didn’t know we needed.
Peaches’ verdict: Smutty popcorn with extra butter — not life-changing, but my god did it go down easy.
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