Big Stick Books in Order

The Big Stick books sit firmly in R.C. Stephens's hockey-romance lane, but they are not only about the sport. These are interconnected contemporary romances built around NHL players, the people closest to them, and the emotional wreckage that fame, bad choices, and old history can leave behind. Hockey gives the series its energy. The relationships give it its weight.

At the center of the series is a tight circle of players, siblings, and longtime connections. Big Stick starts with Myles, a successful hockey star whose easy confidence gets shaken when Flynn, the twin sister of his best friend Oli, comes crashing back into his life in a much more personal way. Their story sets the tone for the rest of the series, lots of attraction, plenty of tension, and a past that neither of them can simply shrug off.

That old history matters.

The second book, Butt Ending, shifts to Oli and Sloane. Here the series leans into a softer but still messy friends-to-lovers setup. Sloane has wanted Oli for years, and Stephens plays with all the things that can make that kind of romance both sweet and frustrating, loyalty, timing, fear of ruining a friendship, and the question of what happens when one person finally stops pretending the feelings are manageable. The hockey setting is still there, but the real pull is the closeness between people who already know each other too well.

Then Dirty Swedish Player widens the world again with Nils and Sierra. This time the setup brings in public scandal, reputation trouble, and a fake relationship that is not as fake as either side wants it to be. Nils is dealing with the fallout of a very public mistake, and Sierra has her own reasons for saying yes to a bad idea. Their book keeps the series' mix of heat and humor, but it also shows how often Stephens likes to give her characters emotional baggage that makes the romance harder, and more satisfying, when it finally works.

Across all three books, the tone stays bright, sexy, and emotional. These are not quiet romances. There is banter, jealousy, family interference, public mess, and a lot of chemistry. But the books are not only playful. Stephens keeps returning to guilt, trust, shame, and the way one terrible night or one bad decision can echo for years.

That balance is what gives Big Stick its shape.

If you are coming to the series for hockey, you will get locker-room swagger, team friendships, travel, and players whose careers matter to the story. If you are coming for romance, you will get different flavors of it in each book, second chances, friends to lovers, fake dating, and couples who have to work through more than simple attraction. The books connect well, but each one still gives its own couple a full emotional arc, which makes the series easy to read in order and just as easy to keep following once you are invested in the whole group.