Common Goal

By: Rachel Reid

Narrated by: Cooper North

THE SERIES THAT INSPIRED HEATED RIVALRY • NOW A #1 STREAMING SHOW

Enter the world of Game Changers, the series behind the epic enemies-to-lovers hockey romance Heated Rivalry, streaming on Crave in Canada and on HBO Max in the U.S.

A friends-with-benefits arrangement between a veteran goalie and a much-younger man leaves them both wanting more, by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Rachel Reid.

Veteran goaltender Eric Bennett has faced down some of the toughest shooters on the ice, but nothing prepared him for his latest challenge—life after hockey. It’s time to make some big changes, starting with finally dating men for the first time.

Graduate student Kyle Swift moved to New York nursing a broken heart. He’d sworn to find someone his own age to crush on (for once). Until he meets a gorgeous, distinguished silver fox hockey player. Despite their intense physical attraction, Kyle has no intention of getting emotionally involved. He’ll teach Eric a few tricks, have some mutually consensual fun, then walk away.

Eric is more than happy to learn anything Kyle brings to the table. And Kyle never expected their friends-with-benefits arrangement to leave him wanting more. Happily-ever-after might be staring them in the face, but it won’t happen if they're too stubborn to come clean about their feelings.

Everything they want is within reach… They just have to be brave enough to grab it.

Game Changers

• Book 1: Game Changer
• Book 2: Heated Rivalry
• Book 3: Tough Guy
• Book 4: Common Goal
• Book 5: Role Model
• Book 6: The Long Game
• Book 7: Unrivaled

Need more Rachel Reid?! Check out these other standalones from your favorite MM hockey romance writer:

• Time to Shine
• The Shots You Take

Good story. Good narration.

Really enjoyed the beginning of this story, and the characters are interesting. The constant back and forth between Eric and Kyle did start to drag on a little bit. Yes, we understand that there is an age gap. The angst started to feel like whining, and I say, "Bite me to anyone who thinks 40 is old for an athlete. I will show you what this old lady can do with a dodgy rotator cuff."

All that said, I enjoyed the functional part of Eric and Kyle's relationship.

This book felt like a lead up story. A few characters that have dropped by in earlier books reappeared a bit too conveniently. More Ilya and Shane now please!

Cooper North is definitely on my must listen narrator list too.

Lovable characters & steamy scenes

I enjoyed listening to Common Goal, another cool love story in Rachel Reid’s series. She does well writing raunchy intimate scenes with delicious attention to detail of the whole “act” including the prep/foreplay and afterwards. I would have loved a couple more hot encounters, but this was more than satisfactory.
The most annoying part of this story was the drawn out “will they won’t they” aspect which I feel went on for too long, but I’m not one for drawn out angst, so others may quite enjoy that aspect of this book (and indeed the whole series).
Cooper North did well, he has such a soothing voice and he is easy to listen to with excellent pronunciation, pace & pitch. All-in-all, a fab listen.

so cute

This was such a cute story of becoming your true self. How not letting yourself miss out because you think you dont deserve love

Kyle and Eric surprised me!

I thoroughly enjoyed Kyle and Benny’s love story more than I thought I would, honestly. Turns out I love love love a delicious slow burn. This one especially had a sayisfying build up. By the end there was no doubt the couple belonged together age gap aside.

Tough guy and Common goal to me sit right up there with everything Shane and Ilya. I hope at some point we get to see these two couples translated to TV.

So far Rachel Reid has yet to let me down. This entire series has been enriching.

Very Sexy, Very Repetitive

Although this book was really sexy, I found the story to be a bit frustrating. Reid creates really charming characters and an interesting enough premise, but the plot it’s stuck in inertia. Throughout the book she creates multiple outlets, that if explored, could have made for a rich storyline. Instead, the entire book revolves around the same repetitive insecurities, which create a story that’s one dimensional and all of the possibilities that would have made the book more interesting were simply tied up in a nice little bow during the epilogue. The repetition was a bummer. That said, the characters are charming, the narration is excellent and the chemistry between Eric and Kyle is super steamy. Because the two first books of the series were so great I will try the next book in the series once it’s written.