Romancing the Rink Books in Order

This page works best as a guide to Tess Thompson's contribution to a shared holiday romance world rather than as one long solo series. Romancing the Rink is a multi-author setup built around Garland Grove, a mountain town in British Columbia with a strong hockey flavor. That gives the books a festive, wintry backdrop and a community where sports, local businesses, and holiday chaos naturally overlap.

Tess Thompson's book here is Checking Holly Twice.

That entry fits her strengths nicely. Instead of leaning hard into locker-room romance, she uses the series setting to tell a holiday opposites-attract story. Famous actress Holly Turner arrives in Garland Grove after a very public breakup and a literal crash into town. With nowhere else to stay, she ends up at a bed-and-breakfast run by the grumpy Forest Sully, who is trying to save his family home while caring for his younger half-siblings. It is a classic forced-proximity setup, just with Christmas lights, mountain weather, and a town shaped by a hockey-world shared series.

That distinction matters because readers landing here may assume this page is about an ongoing Tess Thompson hockey saga. It is not quite that. It is more useful as a side road into a connected holiday project where different authors handle different couples. The common pleasures are setting, season, and tone. Garland Grove offers the snowy, small-town closeness. The shared series concept brings in sports-world energy around the edges. Thompson then layers in the things her own readers usually come for, emotionally bruised characters, practical family pressures, and romance that feels more healing than flashy.

The result is a nice fit for readers who want winter atmosphere without needing a heavy sports plot. Forest's responsibilities give the story weight. Holly's celebrity status adds contrast and a little comic friction. And the holiday frame keeps the book moving toward the familiar question Thompson likes to ask: can two people with very different lives build something steady together when they stop performing for everyone else?

So what should you expect from this page?

Expect help placing Checking Holly Twice inside the wider Romancing the Rink project. If you are browsing from Tess Thompson's author page, think of this as a shared-world bonus stop, a Christmas romance with a hockey-adjacent setting, a grumpy innkeeper, a stranded actress, and a town built for second chances in the snow. It is less about following a huge Tess-only subseries and more about finding the one holiday entry where her voice meets a multi-author winter world.