The Icebreaker book, written by Hannah Grace, was published on November 22, 2022. After its release, the book quickly became popular because of BookTok, which is a TikTok community for book lovers.
The story is set in a fictional college of the University of California, Maple Hills, which is neighboring to actual prestigious USC and UCLA colleges.
Due to the sports and romance elements of the story with the perfect character development, it intrigued several readers.
The New York Times bestseller surely has a lot of drama and zest to offer something unique to readers. This article covers the synopsis of Icebreaker with a complete review of the book.
Characters in Icebreaker
The Icebreaker book is part of the Maple Hill Series published by Hannah Grace, and each character in this book is connected to other sequences. Although there is no chronological order to read the series, the author of the book has recommended reading them in order as follows: Icebreaker>>Wildfire>>Daydream.
The characters of Icebreaker are:
- Anastasia Allen: The main female character of the plot, also known as Stasie. She is a competitive ice skater with a strong ambition to represent Team USA in the Olympics.
- Nathan Hawkins: Nathan Hawkins is the male protagonist of the novel, who is the captain of the UCMH ice hockey team. He is often described as a tall, handsome, and muscular fellow with a sharp jawline.
- Aaron Carlisle: Aaron is the skating partner and roommate of Anastasia, who is somewhat described as an antagonist. He has been portrayed as a narcissist and manipulative persona that can go to any extent.
- Jaiden Johal (JJ): JJ is the best friend and roommate of Nathan; he is also part of the college hockey team.
- Lola Mitchell: Lola is Stasie’s best friend and roommate. As the story progresses, she becomes Robbie’s love interest.
- Robbie Hamlet: Robbie is the oldest best friend of Nate, who has been disabled ever since he got into an ice skating accident.
- Ryan Rothwell: Ryan Rothwell is the captain of the USMH basketball team. He had an intimate relationship with Antasia earlier but they later turned into best friends.
- Bunny Hawkins: Bunny Hawkins is a dog that is introduced in the epilogue of the story. She is a loyal pet of Stasie and Nathan when they get married.
- Coach Brady: Coach Brady is the trainer of Anastasia and Aaron at UCMH.
- Col Skinner: Col Skinner or Director Skinner, is the head director of sports at UCMH.
- Henry Turner: Henry is one of the team players on the ice hockey team of UCMH. He doesn’t have a major role in Icebreaker but plays a prominent role in Daydream.
- Ian Hawkins: Ian Hawkins is the father of Nate, who is often depicted as arrogant and often disliked by his children.
- Sasha Hawkins: Sasha is the younger sister of Nate who is into skiing, and just like Nathan, she has an unhealthy relationship with her father.
- Mila Hawkins: Mila was the mother of Nathan and Sasha, who passed away from a rare blood disorder
- Mr. Hamlet: Mr. Hamlet is the father of Robbie and the first ice hockey coach of Robbie and Nathan when they were children.
- Olivia Abbott: Olivia is the love interest of Ryan.
- Russ Callaghan: Russel Callaghan plays a supportive role in Icebreaker and has a major role in the book Wildfire. He is the goalie of the UCMH ice hockey team.
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Icebreaker Book Summary
Icebreaker is readily available to buy from Kindle Books on Amazon or can easily be downloaded free from OceanofPDF. The plot revolves around two protagonists, Anastasia Allen and Nathan Hawkins, who were mismatched at first but later became romantic couples.
Chapters 1-5
The story begins with a major focus on Anastasia aka Stassie, she is training with her skating partner Aaron, who wants her to lose some weight so he can pick her up.
Stassie is in a constrained relationship with college basketball captain Ryan Rothwell. As the story progresses, we are introduced to the second protagonist, Nathan Hawkins. He and his best friend, roommate, and coach are called to a meeting where they discover the ice hockey rink has become unusable and have to share it with ice skaters.
Chapters 6-10
That’s where the latter meet up for the first time, and Nate invites Anastasia to a house party. This was the first icebreaker between Nate and Anastasia, which led to Anastasia discovering from Aaron that Nate’s teammate Russ hooked up with a girl from UCLA. That anonymous girl whom Russ hooked with was in a relationship and her boyfriend was the one who destroyed the hockey rink.
Anastasia and Nate were both stressed by this situation where things got heated between the two and asked Nathan to never cross her sight. Nathan discovers his best friend Robbie has a crush on Lola, Anastasia’s best friend, and has to pass the invite to her to attend Robbie’s birthday party.
During the practice session, Stassie becomes friends with one of the hockey players, Henry who would bring all the gossip to her. The story quickly progresses to the party scene, where things get dynamic for the duo. They both share a moment, which Stassie quickly regrets and leaves the scene. After a few days, we get to know Ryan is dating another girl, Olivia.
Chapters 11-17
Lola and Robbie are now couples, and things are awkward between Nate and Anastasia, as she’s been trying to ignore Nate. After the school competition, the group decides to hang out at the club where, for instance, Anastasia sits on JJ’s lap, which makes Nate jealous. Nate asks her to dance with him and afterward, both share their moment when Stassie is drunk, but he doesn’t want to sleep with her because she is drunk.
She felt rejected and left the room and later talked it out with Nate, where after the little fun hide-and-seek game, both got to have an intimate moment with each other. When Aaron found out about this, he was pissed with Anastasia and was being rude to her entire practice session.
Chapters 18-28
At the Halloween party, Aaron shows up with a broken arm and blames Nate for doing it and putting something on the rink, which caused him to slip. Although Nate didn’t do it, he still confessed; this led to Stassie being heartbroken, and both got separated.
Nate was benched till Aaron recovered, and Anastasia was stressed about her competition. After learning about her miserable condition, Nate offers to be her partner, which she agrees to. They practiced together for months and were able to perform lifts easily, and the attraction between them grew stronger.
Chapters 29-39
Both travel to Seattle to meet Anastasia’s parents for Christmas, and that is when both define their relationship. Stassie was comfortable calling Nate her boyfriend as both fled to Colorado to stay at Nate’s dad’s house.
Anastasia clearly had feelings for Nate, but was too afraid to tell him because the definition of love was stronger than what they have currently. When Nate went out shopping, Stassie was practicing alone at the pond, and that’s when she fell in the pond.
When Nathan came back, he saw a hole in the pond and quickly rushed to save Stassie. After giving CPR and warming her body, he was able to revive her, and that’s when Stassie confessed her feelings to Nathan. Both the latter spent their Christmas together: Aaron was cleared to skate, which meant Nathan and Stassie had to go back to their mundane lives.
Chapters 40-Epilogue
Nate was a bit unsure about her going on with Aaron because she was having a hard time with him and didn’t want to ruin her competition. On the day of the competition, both couldn’t see each other perform; Nate’s team won and got to know the actual reason behind Aaron’s injury.
Nate was furious and got into a physical fight with Aaron, and that’s when Stassie decided to go solo skating. By the end of the epilogue, we get to know Nathan’s NCAA championship and will be traded to the Seattle hockey team. On the other hand, Anastasia secured the gold medal in Olympics for women’s single skating. That’s when Nate proposed to her, to which she agreed. Stassie is pregnant and has moved to Washington.
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Icebreaker by Hannah Grace Reviews
The book surely has some spice and wouldn’t be recommended for anyone below 18. The character development and story progression are fantastic, and you can sense where the plot is moving through.
One thing that is amazing about this book and well-done by author Hannah Grace is she didn’t unnecessarily extend and twist the story. The plot was straightforward and kept less complicated, which was necessary with such a genre.
The negative about the novel is that the book was initially targeted at a younger audience and has a lot of unnecessary spice to it. Moreover, the book cover acts as a clickbait with a cartoon character, which makes us wonder if this might be for kids.
At a certain point, the story feels quite lackluster and predictable. This might be a great novel for those who are starting to get into the romance genre, but not for hardcore readers.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|
| Straightforward story. | The element of twist is missing. |
| Clearly emphasized on character development. | A lot of spice was added to the story. |
| Added a touch of human psychology. | Not suitable for anyone below 18. |
| Recommended for novice readers. | Predictable story. |
We would rate this book 3/5 ⭐⭐⭐
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FAQs
Ans: No, we won’t recommend this book to anyone below 18, as the story progresses, there are a lot of zest and intimate moments in the book.
Ans: Yes, you can purchase the book from Amazon and local bookstores.
Ans: The Icebreaker by Hannah Grace became popular because of TikTok, and soon many readers started liking the book due to its character development.
Ans: Icebreaker has around 391 pages.
Ans: The story develops from where the main protagonists were first haters, then became lovers.
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