Spotlight: Goalie and the Girl Next Door by Elsie Woods
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(Love in Maple Falls)
Publication date: September 10th 2025
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Sports
Synopsis:
My life was perfect except for the occasional goat emergency. Then a charming French goalie with dimples turned my life upside down. Rude.
Marcy
I came to Maple Falls to rebuild my life with nothing but four pencil skirts and a broken heart, courtesy of my hockey-playing ex. I like numbers because they don’t lie, and I like my quiet ranch life because it’s predictable.
Enter Clément Rivière—the devastatingly charming French goalie who shows up shirtless to help with barn work, whispers sweet French nothings to our goat, and looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world. But I’m not the only one falling for his act—half the town’s women are already under his spell, and I refuse to be just another conquest.
Clément
I traded Paris for small-town Washington to chase my big league dreams and restore a historic house that’s trying to kill me daily. What I didn’t expect was the town’s brilliant, beautiful accountant who treats me like I’m a tax audit waiting to happen.
Marcy Fontaine sees right through my act and makes me want things I never knew were missing. But she’s been burned by a hockey player before, and I’m running out of time to prove I’m different. There’s a ticking time bomb inside me, and my career is on the line.
If I can’t stay, we’ll both have to decide if love is worth the risk—or if some dreams are too good to be true.
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Goalie and the Girl Next Door is a grumpy-sunshine, wounded hero, fish-out-of-water hockey romcom in the Love in Maple Falls series. Add some goat whispering, sunrise kisses, and a guaranteed happily ever after sweeter than maple cupcakes and you have this sweet romance with all the heart and no spice.
Welcome back to Maple Falls—the small town where hockey players fall in love! This is a multi-author series of seven full-length books that could be read as standalones, but we think you’ll enjoy them best in order.
Fake-Off with Fate by Whitney Dineen
Offside and Off-Limits by Kate O’Keeffe
Checking Mr. Wrong by Anne Kemp
Skating and Fake Dating by Ellie Hall
Goalie and the Girl Next Door by Elsie Woods
Soulmates and Slapshots by Melissa Baldwin
The Icing on the Cake by Grace Worthington
Excerpt
His voice is low when he speaks. “Meeting you has been the best thing that’s happened to me since I arrived in Maple Falls.”
I blink. “Really?”
He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s surprised too. “I thought I came here for hockey. For the house. For a chance to reset my life on my own terms. And then—”
And then?
He stops, his eyes studying mine.
“I met you.”
My breath catches and I’m sure he sees it.
The thing is, I’m a woman who makes up her mind. I know what I know, and I know it well. The problem with Clément is that I’d thought I’d made up my mind, and yet here I am, and here he is, and I have to confess that I was wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I’ve seen the way people look at him, talk about him, cheer for him. He’s got fans and teammates and a whole town that swoons every time he so much as orders a coffee. He’s living out dreams people spend their whole lives chasing.
And still, he’s here tonight, with me, making me feel special with his simple truths and vulnerability that he wears on his sleeve.
“I’m doing everything I can, Marcy. Everything I can to not put any kind of pressure on you, because I understand where you’re coming from. But I can’t hold on to this anymore. I can’t keep it to myself. Everything between us feels…” He searches for the word. “Perfect.”
My throat tightens. “But?”
“But there was a call. From France. A guy I trained with wants to start a team and he’s got ambitious ideas. And he asked me to be a part of it. He asked me to come home.”
The word hits me.
Home.
He watches me carefully. “I told him I was trying to put down roots here. That I wasn’t done in Maple Falls. But he knows I’m struggling.” He gives a dry laugh, then grows quiet again. “I am a little lost, Marcy.”
I press my lips together, my voice caught somewhere between breath and disbelief.
He reaches for my hand.
His palm is firm and callused, but the touch is gentle, reverent. His fingers curl around mine like he’s done it a hundred times, like it’s instinct.
“I’m scared,” he says. “If I stay here, I could lose everything I’ve worked for. The career. The dream. But if I leave, I might never know what this could be.” His thumb grazes my knuckles. “What we could become.”
My breath shakes.
I glance at our hands, and the thought creeps in before I can reason it away: I want more than this.
More than his hand on mine. I want to lean into him and see if he’d hold me. I want to know what it would feel like to tuck my face into that space between his collar and his jaw. I want to feel him kiss me in the same way he looks at me. Like I’m the one.
I don’t even know where that kind of wanting comes from. But it’s here. And I want it. I want it so much it scares me.
“What are you going to do?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
The puzzle’s been forgotten, left half-finished on the floor like a conversation paused mid-sentence.
We settle into a position shoulder to shoulder, hands around our mugs and not saying much, not needing to. His presence is so warm beside me that I almost forget the hour. My mug’s empty, my fingers wrapped around cool ceramic, and I rise wordlessly to make more tea.
He doesn’t protest. Just watches me, quiet. Maybe wondering the same thing I am—how something so simple can feel so full.
When I return and settle beside him, he shifts just slightly. I lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He lifts his arm and encircles me. The weight of it feels right. We sip our tea in silence, wrapped up in each other. Nothing has ever felt better.
We let the moment stretch and settle as the first rays of morning touch the windows.
“The light,” he murmurs, barely above a whisper. “It casts everything in a new glow. Even what we thought we knew.”
I turn my face slightly, and when I meet his eyes, every shield I’ve ever built cracks under the weight of his gaze.
I’m falling.
Completely, recklessly, terrifyingly falling.
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About the Author
Elsie Woods is an author of giggly romantic comedy with a big dose of furry friends. While born in Canada, she abandoned cold winters for southern France with her golden retriever and unicycling French hubby. When not writing, she can be found sipping tiny coffees by the Mediterranean, hiking with her hubby and dog, or munching on the most delicious cheese in the world.
Don’t forget to try her free novella available on Amazon: Faking Christmas Love at the Doggy Spa!
Connect:
http://instagram.com/elsie.woods.author/
