WARNING: This article discusses the plots, character arcs and [top-line] endings of all 10 books in the Puckboys series, including who ends up with who. If you’d rather go in blind, bookmark this for after you’ve read them.
Ten books, one hockey league and more queer romance tropes than you can throw a puck at — the Puckboys series by Eden Finley and Saxon James is about to get its proper moment in actual bookshops.
The two Australia-based authors originally self-published Egotistical Puckboy, the first book, back in February 2022, reportedly starting the series as a creative project during pandemic lockdowns, according to a report from Books+Publishing.
Since then, the series has sold more than 1 million ebook and audiobook copies through Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, and built up a genuine BookTok following in the process.
UK publisher Canelo Romance has now bought the world English print rights to all 10 books, with with first six books, starting with Egotistical Puckboy officially hitting shelves in paperback for the first time distributed in Australia and New Zealand through Hardie Grant.
Books six to 10 finally get paperback releases October 27, 2026, but are currently available in e-book and audio formats. (Note, the 10th book Charming Puckboy was first released earlier in this year, so you might find it in book stores already)
Canelo editorial director Emily Bedford said she “devoured” the series on Kindle Unlimited and “couldn’t be more thrilled” to help bring it to print.
Eden Finley described the books as being about “journeys of self-discovery, questioning societal expectations and, most of all, acceptance,” while Saxon James said “queer love and joy deserves its space in the market.”
If you’ve been mainlining Heated Rivalry, this is your next obsession — same closeted-athletes-falling-for-each-other energy, considerably more books to get through. The books are definitely in the spirted of Heated Rivalry, but a beautiful masterclass in world building.
READ MORE: Heated Rivalry season two adds two more stars as filming begins
So what actually is Puckboys?
Each book follows a different couple within the same sprawling NHL universe, collecting players who form the NRL Queer Collective. The back half of the series mostly connects back to one hockey dynasty: the Kikishkin “Kiki” brothers, three siblings — Connor, Easton and Lachie — who each get their own book.
Several characters also cross over from Finley and James’s earlier CU Hockey series, and by the back half of the series, the out players and their partners have banded together into a group they call the NHL Queer Collective, which becomes its own running plotline.
It’s low-angst, high-heat and very funny, and the couples largely stay in each other’s orbit from book to book, so there’s a real hangout-show quality to reading it in order. Here’s every couple, in order.
Book 1: Egotistical Puckboy — Ezra and Anton (February 10, 2022)
Ezra Palaszczuk is Boston’s cocky, partying NHL forward, best friend to Westly Dalton (of the CU Hockey series) and the son of a Polish immigrant father who had his own five-year NHL career.
Anton Hayes is Philadelphia’s disciplined winger, who has kept his sexuality out of the tabloids for his entire career — until one night with Ezra threatens to blow it all up.
The official blurb sums up the dynamic best: Ezra says Anton “rivals me for most egotistical puckboy in the league,” while Anton says Ezra has “an ego bigger than Massachusetts... and okay, maybe he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever known.”
It’s rivals-to-lovers with real bite. Ezra and Anton spend most of the book insisting they can’t stand each other while doing very much the opposite, and it sets the tone for the entire series: filthy banter first, feelings a close second.
Book 2: Irresponsible Puckboy — Tripp and Dex (May 11, 2022)
Tripp Mitchell and Dex Mitchale play together for Las Vegas and share a surname close enough that fans have taken to calling them “the Mitchell brothers,” despite being no relation.
Tripp is gay and hopelessly in love with his straight best friend. Dex is straight, terrified of commitment after a string of failed relationships, and comes up with an “irresponsible” solution to his fear of settling down that puts both his career and his friendship with Tripp on the line.
It’s a marriage-of-convenience plot layered over years of oblivious pining, and it’s the book that made me the most nervous for two characters I already loved by page one. And the joke of the two brothers who are married that continues through the remaining books never had me not laughing.
Book 3: Shameless Puckboy — Oskar and Lane (October 27, 2022)
Oskar Voyjik is San Jose’s biggest party boy, tattoos and all, and after a very public alleyway mishap caught on CCTV, the team assigns new PR manager Lane Pierce to fix his image.
Lane moves in to keep Oskar on a tighter leash, but the more he tries to reform hockey’s resident wild card, the more he uncovers the sensitive person underneath.
This is the “fake babysitter, real feelings” book of the series, and it’s also the one where the stakes feel highest: Lane isn’t just risking his heart, he’s risking his entire career if the lines he’s crossed become public.
Book 4: Foolish Puckboy — Aleks and Gabe (April 13, 2023)
Fresh off a divorce, Seattle’s Aleksander “Aleks” Emerson wants fun, dating and absolutely nothing serious — then he meets firefighter Gabe Crosby, who, in the book’s words, is “a disgrace to the Crosby name” because he doesn’t even like hockey.
Gabe takes newly single Aleks under his wing (and into his bed), fully intending to keep things casual while he works towards the family life he actually wants.
It’s the softest entry so far, all drunken confessions and accidental domesticity, and Gabe might be the most quietly endearing love interest in the whole series.
Book 5: Clueless Puckboy — Quinn and Vance (October 5, 2023)
Buffalo forward Ayri “Quinn” Richard — best friend of Asher Dalton from the CU Hockey series — has a groin injury he’s mortified to admit to, which means regular, extremely awkward treatment sessions with team trainer Vance Landon.
Quinn is desperate to hide his feelings for Vance. His body, unfortunately, keeps giving him away.
This one leans hardest into comedy, and Quinn’s sheer, blushing cluelessness makes him one of the most purely charming leads in the series.
Book 6: Bromantic Puckboy — Bilson and Miles (April 18, 2024)
After multiple failed marriages, veteran Cody Bilson trades Seattle for Nashville hoping a fresh start will cure his “attachment problems.”
Nashville’s beloved rookie goalie Miles Olsen — straight, adored by the whole team, and a devoted maker of friendship bracelets — decides the best way to stop Bilson chasing after women is to redirect that energy somewhere else entirely.
Both men insist, repeatedly, that they’re straight. The book has other ideas. It’s the series’ most overtly comedic “bi-awakening” entry, and Miles in particular is an absolute delight.
It was reading this book that I started to become dubious. Are we really to believe that two straight bros are happy to hook up, only to fall in love. But honestly, by the end of this I was sold. Love is love.
Book 7: Forbidden Puckboy — Easton and Knox (September 19, 2024)
Easton Kikishkin, the middle of the three hockey-playing Kikishkin brothers and an out NHL player for Colorado, has been in love with his big brother’s best friend since he was 12.
Knox Addison, a hockey referee, has spent a decade hiding exactly those feelings, terrified of what it would do to his friendship with eldest brother Connor if anything happened.
A week spent together at a charity match forces the issue. It’s a slow burn with genuine ache to it, made trickier by the fact that Knox keeps getting rostered to referee Easton’s games well after the pair get together — a running joke the series never quite lets go of.
Book 8: Possessive Puckboy — Connor and Parker (March 27, 2025)
Connor Kikishkin is the eldest, most protective brother and Colorado’s biggest star, and his world tilts when the team is bought out by a new owner: Parker Duchene, the billionaire he mercilessly bullied in high school.
Parker says he bought the team to honour his late father — and, as he puts it, because “emotionally playing with one of my many high school tormentors is a nice bonus, too.”
This is the messiest, most morally tangled entry in the series, built on genuine hurt rather than simple misunderstanding, and it’s all the better for it.
Book 9: Stubborn Puckboy — Novi and Colby (August 2025)
Radimir “Novi” Novicov is a star NHL player for Anaheim, originally from Russia, closeted for his entire career and with two years left on his contract before he plans to quietly disappear from public life.
Colby Kessinger played alongside Novi 17 years earlier, before an almost-kiss ended their friendship and sent Colby’s own playing career off the rails. Now Colby is back as Anaheim’s assistant video coach — working for the team, and for the man who once broke his heart.
It’s the series’ most quietly devastating entry, dealing directly with the reality that some players still can’t safely come out, and it earns every bit of its slower, more emotional pace.
Book 10: Charming Puckboy — Lachie and Sam (April 16, 2026)
Lachie Kikishkin, the youngest brother, is the NHL’s projected next generational star and, according to teammates, has an uncanny knack for finding stray animals — earning him the nickname “Disney princess.”
Home in Colorado for the off-season, Lachie keeps running into Sam Trevors, a nurse at the local animal hospital who used to mock teenage Lachie’s constant rescue missions and never noticed his obvious crush.
Grown-up Lachie has other ideas. It’s the sweetest, fluffiest entry in the series, and closes out the main run with the kind of hopeful, everybody’s-happy energy the whole series has been building towards.
The NHL Queer Collective
By the time the series catches up to itself, the out players and partners have formed their own found family: Ollie Strömberg, Caleb Sorensen, Foster Grant, Asher Dalton, Westly Dalton, Ezra Palaszczuk, Anton Hayes, Tripp Mitchell, Dexter Mitchale, Oskar Voyjik, Aleksander Emerson, Ayri Quinn, Cody Bilson, Miles Olsen, Radimir Novicov, Lachie Kikishkin, Easton Kikishkin and Connor Kikishkin.
It’s a nice structural trick: every new book adds another member to a support network that already has years of in-jokes and shared history, so later instalments feel lived-in rather than repetitive.
My only sadness is we never got to see if Ezra’s wish of having a Queer Collective Player in every single NHL team came to fruition.
How it all wraps up
A bonus scene attached to Charming Puckboy, narrated by Lachie, catches up with the wider cast after the main series ends, and it’s worth flagging for anyone invested in the ensemble.
Lachie is traded home to Colorado to finally play alongside brothers Connor and Easton, with partner Sam relocating too. At his first game in Colorado colours, Knox — still, somehow, getting rostered to referee Easton’s games years into their marriage — drops the puck against a Buffalo side captained by a retiring Quinn, who’s stepping away to become a stay-at-home dad.
Colorado wins, and the celebrations move to the Queer Collective’s end-of-season gathering, where Ezra and Anton deliver the night’s big news: they’re not splitting up, as the group briefly fears, but retiring together at season’s end.
With the Collective suddenly down to a handful of active out players, Ezra runs an impromptu, lip-sync-battle-style contest to choose his successor as captain, and the group ultimately votes Lachie into the role. It’s a nice full-circle moment for the series’ youngest lead, and hopefully a signal that Eden Finley and Saxon James see plenty of life left in this universe yet. Fingers crossed for a [another] spin off series.
The verdict
If you want angst-free, extremely horny, genuinely funny queer sports romance with a cast that keeps circling back on itself in satisfying ways, *Puckboys* is an easy series to recommend, and an even easier one to binge.
Egotistical Puckboy and the books 2-6 are currently out in paperback, through Canelo Romance, distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Hardie Grant. Books 7 to ten till be released October 27, 2026.