Hip Check

Martin’s fans will welcome the 10th New York Blades hockey romance (after Breakaway), in which playboy Esa Saari’s charmed life takes a well-deserved turn for the chaotic. Esa’s sister dies and his niece’s guardian abrogates her responsibilities after a year, so Esa reluctantly takes over caring for eight-year-old Nell. Flailing, he hires the first nanny he interviews: Michelle Beck, a petite, bossy brunette who upends Esa’s Barbie-doll notion that desirable women are “tall, blond, and malleable.” Esa celebrates his liberation from child care in a drunken threesome with twin models, and his eventual romantic wakeup call is his sudden inability to get it up for women who aren’t Michelle; meanwhile, the self-sufficient nanny falls inexplicably hard for her careless, thoughtless employer. Brassy British Nell steals the show from the lusting, dithering adults (though readers may not appreciate her use of “mong,” short for “mongoloid,” as a cutesy epithet). The supporting cast is amusing, but both plot and emotional development are thin. Agent: Miriam Kriss, Irene Goodman Literary Agency. (Feb.)