Review - Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson

In Gibson's newest release we return to the Chinook hockey team and star player Sam LeClaire.  Sam shares custody of his 5 year old son, Connor, with his ex-wife, Autumn.  Sam and Autumn had a brief whirlwind fling in Vegas six years previously.  Now, both live in Seattle and shuttle Connor between assistants to avoid seeing each other.  But Sam slowly starts to realize that he is missing something in his life and wants both Autumn and Connor back full-time.

I really enjoyed this book - I stayed up until 2am to finish it and had tears in my eyes at one point.  Signs to me that I am reading a good book.  Trust me, normally when someone is crying during a movie or tells me I will cry in a book, I roll my eyes.  Most times I find that an author or movie is trying too hard to pull the emotion out of me.  So if I do find myself crying, I genuinely feel that there is true emotion in the book.  It took me awhile to warm up to Sam, he was a very absentee and uninterested father for the first 5 years of Connor's life.  But Rachel Gibson was able to make the character of Sam work for me and become more likable.  Autumn seemed to be the stereotypical single mother - strong, resilient, yet vulnerable and still working through the rejection of Sam.  I think my favourite scene in the book was with Sam, Connor, and Autumn when Sam discovers Autumn wearing a Sidney Crosby Penguins jersey.

I have read other reviews saying that this book is very similar to Gibson's Simply Irresistible and I agree.  But unlike some, I do not have a problem with this.  Simply Irresistible is one of my all-time favourite books and there are enough differences between the two so that Any Man of Mine is not a carbon copy.  I am hoping that there will be a long line of hockey books from Rachel Gibson because one can never have enough Canadian hockey heroes!