Pucked Up

Punk as Puck, Book 2

De: E. M. Lindsey

Narrado por: Kirt Graves, Iggy Toma

Sometimes what happens anonymously in a dingy, pay-by-the-hour motel room shows up a month later to reveal himself as your new coach…

I have rules. Very important rules. No real names, no strings, no seeing each other again. It's always worked out well for me, and it's the only thing that keeps me focused as I try to climb my way into professional hockey after nearly torching my career.

I should have been king of the ice in the paraprofessional league, but instead, I let my anger and bitterness get to me. Now I'm forced to claw my way back into relevance, starting with a community team.

That would be fine if the one amazing, anonymous night I had with a total stranger didn't end up being the Wolves' new coach. And even that might have been tolerable if Hugo wasn't on my father's payroll.

But he is.

And to make matters worse, I still want him. My bad attitude and attempt to drive him away don't faze him at all, and the more I push, the more he pulls me back into the last place I want to be: his orbit.

All I want is to join the PPHL and prove to myself that I'm a worthy player on my own merit.

Lust wasn't on the table. And neither was love.

But the closer I get to Hugo, the more I realize that I'm not sure I want to do this without him… and the more I realize I'm not sure if I can.

Pucked Up is the second book in the Punk and Puck series, which is best enjoyed in order. It's an enemies-with-benefits, coach/player, slow burn into love romance. It features a para hockey player with a continent-sized chip on his shoulder, a widower coach who never expected to fall for anyone after the loss of his husband, a bossy dynamic, a lot of praise, hockey bro banter, the merits of jumping on the bed when you're sad, found family, and a steamy, wild happily ever after.

©2025 E.M. Lindsey (P)2026 Podium Audio

May feel all the feels. I did

Yes, I needed tissues at some points. Yes, I absolutely wanted to step into this and yell at His father. I am glad we got to understand Micah more (secretly hoping for his HEA). This is narrated by 2 of my favorites. Iggy and Kirt. Anyway, back to the book, What happens when you find your heart again across a bar and the other is just looking for a hook up? Gotta listen to find out. Yes there are spicy times, comfort times and for me, aggravation times.

What happened with the accents??

The book starts great -- the first few episodes are read wonderfully, with good accents, intonations, breathiness, everything one might want. The story is good, deep, emotional with a wonderful door into the world of a para athlete.

It was so good I went and grabbed a few more books read by Kirt Graves, who I believe narrated the first few chapters.

Then... Then things started falling apart. By chapter 7 and 8 accents were sloppy particularly for the Hugo's chapters. Swedish, Russian, maybe even a tiny bit German in spots... but a French accent it was not. I read around 300 books a year, with about 30-50% being audiobooks. This hurt to get through. Great in parts, just painful in others.
And the first book, narrated by the same narrators was very well done (but in American accents...).

Mostly because no author deserves it, I gave the performance 3 stars instead of the 1ish it deserves. The saving grace was the quality of the first few chapters' narration, and because I normally enjoyed these narrators in other works.

The story is good, so I think a good sound producer needs to review this work ASAP and parts should be rerecorded.
Better than AI? Absolutely. But for two good narrators, this boggles the mind. Who pushed this through?

Disappointed

Normally I love EM Lindsey books and enjoy narrations by Iggy Toma and Kirt Graves. For some reason this one was just off for everyone. The story felt very disjointed and didn’t flow well, and I hated the accents both narrators did for the MCs. Not really sure what else to say. Hopefully the next book will be better.