Product Description

Ryan Talonovich is the star of his college hockey team ... until an accident during practice leaves him confined to a wheelchair. The doctors say he'll walk again but a new season is already underway and he's been replaced on the team, which leaves him feeling alone and betrayed. What's the use of fighting to get back on the ice now? Then he meets Dante Espinosa, a short track skater on the city's speed skating club. Though he has to work overtime to afford his sport, Dante is hell on ice, and dreams of making the cut on the U.S. Olympic Speedskating Team. Their love of the ice brings them together, but too many obstacles stand in their way: Ryan's struggle with therapy. The memory of Dante's first boyfriend. Lack of funding to the event, Dante's harassing boss, a skating friend in love with him, and Wil Dietrich, who will do anything to win.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1216557 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

About the Author
J. M. Snyder's other books are Operation Starseed and Scarred. For more info, visit jmsnyder.net.

Customer Reviews

Power Play
Ryan Talonovich was the star of his college hockey team before he was seriously hurt at practice. The injuries he sustained have put him in a wheel chair. It'll be a long time before he can walk again, never mind skate. Ryan is angry and depressed. Watching his teammates skate makes him feels worse. It's at the rink that he meets Dante Espinoza. Dante is an exceptionally talented speed skater working towards his dream of going to the Olympics. Ryan and Dante hit it off and soon, romance follows. Dante has to work hard to afford to skate, his mom doesn't approve of it, and he's got issues with his teammates. Ryan is hurting, mentally and physically, and his mom's over protectiveness is driving him nuts. Will the love Dante and Ryan find in each other's arm see them through the rough road ahead?

Power Play is a wonderful love story. It's full of angst and passion. The emotion pours off of every page. Whether it is Dante's feelings about his lecherous boss or his need for his mother's approval or Ryan's fight to get back on his feet or his struggle to cope with his mother's over protectiveness, you can feel every one of their emotions. The love and desire Dante and Ryan have for each other creates one poignant and erotic moment after another. Power Play has fantastic characterization. You really get to know Dante and Ryan, who they are, where they're going and what makes them tick. The same can be said for every character in the story. The innocent and intense feelings Dante and Ryan have for each other are extremely endearing and sexy. Ryan is shy and nervous. He's strong, but reduced to near helplessness. It doesn't sit well with him and he struggles to find himself again throughout the story. Dante is exactly what Ryan needs. He's protective, honorable, and gorgeous. His own battles are hard won. I felt intimately a part of Dante and Ryan's relationship as it unfolded across the pages. Power Play is uplifting and beautiful, although, I wanted more at the end. I wasn't done reading about Dante and Ryan! Power Play is another example of why J.M. Snyder is one of the best author's of gay romance.

Nannette
reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

Power Play by J.M. Snyder
This is not at all the novel I was expecting. First of all the characters are much younger than I thought.

Ryan is a 19 years old college student and hockey player who, during a game, was badly injured. Now he is in a wheelchair and ahead of him he has many months, maybe years, of therapy for the hope to walk again, but not more skating for him. He has lost everything: he is not a striking guy, not a good student, he is plain and simple, and maybe a little surly, and being the star of the college hockey team was his change to be someone in college. Now he is a cripped guy living with his parents and with no chance in front of him. And he is also virgin, he likes guys but he has never had the courage to near someone, only an interrupted attempt of blowjob during a frat party.

Dante is a 18 years old boy from the wrong side of the city. After high school he didn't go to college, cause he has no the necessary money, and to be true, neither the inclination. He only loves speed skating, he is very good at it, and his dream is to arrive to Olympics. He works to pay his lessons and the fee to the trials. He is a beautiful latino guy, the dream man of many girls, but he is gay. He has had only a lover, a very bad experience with a schoolmate, but he has not given up the hope to find a boyfriend. Yes, a boyfriend, cause Dante is only an eighteen years old guy, and for him love is someone to call mine, someone to hung out with, someone who, like a knight in shining armour, stand up for him and claim to all the world and above all to the men who bother him, that he is his boyfriend, so hands out from him!

The story is very well written and compelling. Dante's trouble to find the money for simple things but also for the month's rent, his daydreams of glory. Ryan's struggle with the therapy, his bad attitude, very right considering his situation, his relationship with his mother. Oh yes, his mother... cause we are speaking of a nineteen years old guy, not a man, and mothers are still a very present costant in a guy's life. And Ryan's mother is a wonderful character, not the perfect mother of fantasy, but a real mother, bothering but loving.

And then there is the sex, that at that age is the most important thing you have, but it is naive and tender. Sex is also a kiss stolen in the shadow, but sex is also something more, you do careless and with enthusiasm. Condoms are a joke, not a life's necessity... they are teens in heat.