Two for Roughing – Lasairiona E. McMaster

Snow Pirates
3

It’s a simple rule: don’t bang your teammates’ siblings. Finn O’Brien didn’t just break the rule, he annihilated it. Falling in love with his best friend’s younger sister when they were teens was an accident. He fought it for years, hiding behind a list of one-night stands a mile long, anything to convince himself Molly Morrison wasn’t the woman for him. But when they cross the line, there’s no going back. Finn is playing with fire. Can he keep the two most important people in his life, or will he be forced to choose?

This book contains:

References and discusses domestic violence against a child
References and discusses death of a child
References and discusses the impact of grief.

Molly is the little sister of the Snow Pirates captain who we’ve met in the previous two books. She’s outspoken, she’s confident and she doesn’t apologise to anyone about who she is and who she’s attracted to. The only problem she has that she struggles with is that she’s in love with Finn who’s totally, 100% off limits since he’s her brother’s best friend and also on the Snow Pirates.

Finn is set to graduate college and the Snow Pirates are on track to win the season. Except it’s getting harder and harder for him to hide his love for Molly who is absolutely off limits since she’s his best friend’s sister. His best friend and his family took him in when his parents couldn’t cope with the death of his brother (something he still struggles with today) and he definitely doesn’t want to lose the only family he has left.

Molly and Finn’s history spans years. Right back to when they first met back in high school.

With a mix of how they’re handling their attraction now, and flashbacks to the past to explain how and why things are happening now, we watch them come so close but not quite get together. Until they do and then hell seems to break lose as they try and navigate whether they even work without Will finding out and ruining their good thing.

While I really loved this book (forbidden romance is always interesting to me), there was one element I wished was explored more. Molly is very sexually open and happy to explore limits, and Finn loves her as she is and has his own fantasies. Yet this is really only very briefly explored in the very last chapter/epilogue in the most basic way.

I kinda wish their sexual freedom and kinks had been explored more within the story. I got a sense that rather than allowing them to be who they were, they were being pushed to stay in the “mainstream” idea of a relationship. Which given how adamant Molly is that she lives her life how she wants, it just felt wrong in a way.

That’s not to say that their relationship development wasn’t awesome. I just wish the sexual side of the relationship had have reflected who it felt like they were a bit better.