Toni Aleo - Assassins Series - Guestpost

I am very fortunate to have a special guest today.  Toni Aleo who has a series out about the NHL team the Nashville Assassins.  Who wouldn't want to read about Hockey and Love.  The good, the bad, and the beareded.  Here's Toni's post:

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The playoff beard and why guys with them are hot!

That’s Shea Weber.

That’s the start of his gorgeous playoff beard.

I don’t know where my lusty needs for beards come from but I have them. My husband has never been able to grow a beard but he has his sexy mustache and I love it. I do. But when playoff season comes around and all my hot hockey players look like woodsy, mountain men, my heart goes into over drive.

Maybe that’s why the playoffs are the most exciting time ever to me. Maybe it’s the lusty needs in me to see a man skating around with his massive Sasquatch beard, knocking people around and scoring goals. I don’t know. But it’s hot. Before we go into the hotness that is the playoff beard, let’s discuss why my hot hockey boys grow them.

According to Wikipedia, the tradition started in the 1980s by the New York Islanders. Once in the playoff, the guys don’t shave until their team is eliminated. If they lose a game during their seven game series, some guys are known to trim it up just to see if it changes their luck. It is practiced throughout all the NHL, NCAA, and the minor leagues. It has also spread to the hockey leagues in Europe. Even fans are known to grow their beards out to give their team luck. Great things have come from this tradition, one being the Bread-A-Thon campaign. It has raised over one million dollars for NHL charities. No one knows if it is just superstition or if it really does help the guys win, all that is known, is that everyone grows a beard at the start of the playoffs.

Now that we have a history, we can discuss the different kinds of beards. Shea Weber is known for his Sasquatch beard. Opponents on the ice are generally scared crapless when Shea comes towards them with his massive beard and scary eyes. I am not scared and I usually run towards him. He is gorgeous without the beard, but with it, it’s pure magic. It makes me want to run up and rub my nose all throughout it!

Just like Shea, Joe Thornton, from the San Jose Sharks has a Sasquatch kinda beard. It’s fuzzy and big, and I, for one, dig it. Doesn’t it just make you want to run your fingers and nose through it? Or is that just me?

 Todd Bertuzzi, Patrick Sharpe, and Henrick Zetterberg all do the cleaned up kind of beard. I don’t feel they really follow the tradition since they are known to cut and clean up their beards. I like my beard wild and scary but these guys do the beard justice.

There is also the neck beard. Its weird and I don’t understand it, but Tyler Seaguin from the Boston Bruins is scrumptious with it!

Then you have the cutie patootie guys, the young bucks, that can’t grow themselves hot beards. So this happens. Jonathan Ericsson is a beautiful man, and I, for one, love that this happens instead of a big scary beard.

Some of the guys don’t think that the playoff beard is enough. Kevin Klein decided her was going to do a Mohawk too. Funny thing is, he started a trend and now almost all the Nashville Predators have Mohawks.


While I love the playoff beard, sometimes they can go horribly wrong and this happens. This is when playoff beards are not hot and no matter how much you think it will help you win, please help us little people and shave that mess!

So really, after reading this, you have to admit, you like guys with beards too. So why don’t you go to your couch, turn on your TV to NBC sports and check out some hot hockey guys with beards.

Believe me, you won’t regret it.

GO PREDS!


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Thank you Toni for that very informative post about beards! (I know I love them!)  Here's some information on the first two books in the Assassins series.

Taking Shots
By Toni Aleo
Release Date: October 5, 2011
Series: Assassins

Description:
Elli Fisher has never thought she was good enough. Let it be her job, her weight, her love life, nothing, she was convinced she couldn’t do anything right. She had walked through life for the past six years in a daze, never thinking that life could be good again after the abuse she endured from her ex boyfriend. She is lonely, sad, and depressed, that is until she meets Shea Adler. After doing a promotional shoot for the NHL team, the Nashville Assassins, she meets the hunky hockey player who shoots a puck, shattering her world.

Shea Adler was tired of the life he was living outside of the rink. The girls, the money blowing, the drinking, everything had to stop and it all did when he met Eleanor Fisher. He had never met anyone like her. She is feisty, witty, shy, and simply gorgeous. When he laid eyes on her, it was as if he was taking the hardest hit of his life into the boards, and he had to have her.

Elli is a little skeptical of Shea, but he knows that they were meant to be together, and he needed her in his life. But Elli just doesn’t understand what Shea could see in her. She is overweight, loud, and not even that pretty, so why would someone so gorgeous and so amazing want to be with her? It seemed that no matter how hard she tried to shake Shea off, he wasn’t going anywhere, and for the first time Elli didn’t feel alone.

But could Elli throw her insecurities out the window and love Shea with everything inside of her? Or will she let a past relationship, and her family ruin any chance of her being happy?
Would Elli miss her shot at love?

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Trying to Score
By Tony Aleo
Release Date: April 11, 2012
Series: Assassins

Description:
Fallon Parker’s dream was to have her family’s wine company at the top of all wine magazines and to have a cellar of her own. After graduating from college, she has worked hard to make that dream a reality, even if that meant having a nonexistent love life. She had her chance at love and that was a bust, so she put everything into the wine company. After becoming the official sponsor of the Nashville Assassins, Fallon finally feels like everything is falling in place, that is until Lucas Brooks comes back into her life.

Lucas Brooks hates his life. He is lonely, he is sober, and he is angry. On the ice, when he’s not in the sin bin, he the leading scorer in the NHL but off the ice, he is a mess. He threw away the most important person in his life, and has regretted it ever since but when Lucas sees Fallon again after being traded to the Assassins; he is bound and determined to get her back. Even if she wants nothing to do with him.

The sexual tension between Fallon and Lucas is electrifying as Lucas tries to convince Fallon that he is a changed man. Fallon tries to resist Lucas, but it is so hard when all her body wants is his. But when Lucas finds out that Fallon has been keeping a huge secret from him, the game he is playing stops and penalties are called.

With new rules and new players on the ice, will Fallon and Lucas be able to work out their differences and work as a team or will they be left trying to score alone.

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About the Author:

I am a wife, mother, and hopeless romantic.


I have been told I have anger issues, but I think it’s cause of my intense love for hockey!

I am the biggest Shea Weber fan ever, and can be found during hockey season with my nose pressed against the Bridgestone Arena’s glass, watching my Nashville Predators play!

When my nose isn’t pressed against the glass, I enjoy going to my husband and son’s hockey games, my daughters dance competition, hanging with my best friends, taking pictures, and reading the latest romance novel.

I love things that sparkle, I love the color pink, and did I mention I love hockey?

Website
Facebook
Twitter: @tonilovesweber6

Links to Buy
Amazon - Taking Shots
Barnes and Noble - Taking Shots
Amazon - Trying To Score
Barnes and Noble - Trying To Score