***May contain spoilers***

***Scroll to the bottom for my rating***

I want to begin this review by saying that I am sorry if my comments and opinions come across as harsh; that is not my intent. I am writing this way to give the author constructive feedback and inform future readers what you can expect if this seems like a story for you. Everyone is entitled to their likes and dislikes and what irks them versus what they can and can’t get past when reading. 

Need Your Number by Mariah Goodwin is a fast-paced, spicy hockey romance. This is Mariah’s debut novel, featuring some of my favorite romance tropes like brother’s best friend, grumpy & sunshine, he falls first, and most obviously sports romance. 

Follow the relationship of Fiona Campbell and Zane Miller as they fall hard and fall fast while attaching their career goals and journeys into professional sports, and you’ve got yourself a story. The concept was there, shining even, but the execution was unfortunately faulty. 

I wanted to like this book so badly, I really did, but I couldn’t get rid of my frustration (and not the good kind with a spicy read like this). I read this on my Kindle, utilizing one of my Kindle Unlimited titles, and expected a clean, polished story. The below picture explains why.

For those who may not be able to see the picture, it says:

Note to Readers

Hi friends! 

This is the rereleased version of Need Your Number, and I hope you love it. There are a few changes from the original version, but mainly, I worked with a new editor to do a complete overhaul of the story, grammar, and formatting. I hope you enjoy it!

Love, 

Mariah

Due to this note from the author, I believed she received feedback from her initial release and decided to tweak the book to enhance it as her series continues to grow. I was seriously disappointed. 

For the beginning of the read, I gave the benefit of the doubt, “Maybe the revised edition didn’t upload correctly,” “Maybe Amazon messed something up with her edits,” or “Maybe there’s a glitch.” As I progressed through the story, those thoughts slowly disappeared and turned to annoyance. 

When a reader is told to expect an “overhaul,” it is painful to see significant grammatical and formatting errors. It is hard to read paragraphs that jump from one place to the next or put characters in opposing places/positions from where they were two pages before. It’s like in a film or TV show with a continuity error in the wardrobe or props; it’s hard to miss. 

That, paired with the overwhelming amount of sex and too fast a pace (for me), turned me off from the story. Because of the pacing, there was little to no tension in key moments, and it seemed like there may have been more sex in the book than actual plot, and even those scenes were too fast. Considering how many there were throughout the story, you would expect more variety. Still, a lot of them started and ended the same exact way. It got boring. 

This story did, however, have some redeeming qualities in other elements that Mariah explored. There was a strong presence and importance placed on family, which I enjoyed. The sibling dinners, parent meetings, and revisiting of childhood traditions were endearing. Additionally, Mariah addressed important topics such as consent, roofying, and verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. The way the characters dealt with these concepts was empowering and honestly heartwarming. Mariah deserves praise for the way she handled these serious topics so well. But that is where my praise for this story ends. 

Realistically, I should have DNF’d this book due to my intense dislike for it, but I gave it a shot because of how much I hoped for a change in the issues I found early on. Because of these faults and the few redeeming qualities, I am rating Need Your Number 2.5 out of 5 stars, with a 4 for spice due to the sheer amount of it. 

If the things I mentioned in my review would not bother you while reading, I suggest you try this title, but I will not be reading the rest of this series. 

As always, thanks for reading! 💜

Stars: ⭐️⭐️.5

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️