Mile High is for readers who like their hockey romance enemies-to-lovers, set largely on a team plane, with a hero whose public persona is part of the problem. Liz Tomforde puts a flight attendant who has sworn off athletes onboard with the NHL player fans love to hate, and the interesting question is how work, public image and body image shape the pairing.
The player fans love to hate
The Hodder & Stoughton page for Mile High starts with Zanders, a Chicago hockey player who says the sport is not complete without him as everyone’s favorite player to hate. He knows his role and plays it well. He enjoys spending most of his game time in the penalty box and leaving the arena each night with a different woman. What he does not enjoy is the new flight attendant on the team’s private plane, who he insists works for him, and he promises she will beg to quit by the end of the season.
The blurb adds the first hint that something else is going on. As the road trips continue, he cannot tell whether he keeps pressing the call button to push her buttons or because it is more than that. Because the hero describes his own image as a role he plays, the blurb sets up a gap between the persona and the man, which is the heart of the image theme.
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A flight attendant with a rule
Stevie is the other half. She has been a flight attendant for years and thought she had seen it all, until her new job puts her onboard with the most egotistical, self-righteous diva in the NHL. It also puts pressure on a promise she made herself: never to hook up with an athlete again, however annoyingly tempting he may be. Stevie describes Zanders as unfiltered, unapologetic and too attractive for his own good, and she hates everything about his image but him.
Work is therefore the engine. Her job keeps her in the cabin, his schedule keeps him on the plane, and the repeated trips give their dislike a recurring stage. The sources frame a professional who has a reason to avoid athletes and a hero who equates being disliked with doing his job.
Where the job comes from
The author’s About page says that before writing full time she was a flight attendant for an NHL team, and that Stevie’s job in Mile High is based on her former job. That does not make the book a documentary, and the sources do not say how closely any scene matches real travel. It does suggest that the plane setting comes from lived experience rather than being a gimmick added to a hockey plot.
Where body image comes in
The publisher lists a curvy female lead among the tropes and leads with a quoted line about not having to love your body every single day, and about someone being there to love it on the days you cannot. The author’s own page lists body shaming among its content warnings. Together these suggest that body image is an intended thread rather than a side detail.
The sources do not describe how that thread is handled, but the subject is clearly advertised, so if you want a heroine whose body is described with care, or conversely if body-shaming scenes are a hard limit, you should read the author’s notes and the opening chapters with that in mind.
Format, series and edition
Mile High is the first book in the Windy City series, which the publisher says has gripped over a million readers. The tropes the publisher lists include enemies to lovers, sports romance, hockey playboy, found family, flight attendant and player, family trauma, forced proximity and dual POV. Hodder describes this edition as a new paperback reissue on sale 6 November 2025, with an exclusive bonus chapter, exclusive illustrations, inside-cover printing and a series spine design. The next book, The Right Move, moves to basketball with a different couple.
Voice and tone
Tomforde describes her own books as showcasing healthy relationships, with witty banter, found-family moments and plenty of steam, and the publisher lists found family among this book’s tropes. The blurb is written as two first-person sections headed Zanders and Stevie, and the publisher names dual POV, so expect to be in both heads. The humor in the premise is the call button, the penalty box and the war of status between a player and the person serving him. The author’s site also makes the Windy City bonus content free to read online, which is a small extra for readers who want more time with the cast.
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What readers praise about Mile High
Readers on major book-review sites most often praise the chemistry and sharp banter between Stevie and Zanders and the enemies-to-lovers tension. Many found the heroine’s body-confidence and self-love arc realistic and moving, and liked watching the hero’s playboy image give way to a caring, protective and vulnerable partner. Several say therapy, mental health and family relationships are handled thoughtfully, and others single out the found family around the hero and the sweet, devoted romantic gestures.
Reader comments the publisher collects for the Windy City series as a whole describe laughing, crying and swooning, and one praises the spice. Many reviewers also say they were eager to read the next books in the series.
Content notes
Tomforde’s author page for the book lists explicit sex scenes, mentions of anxiety and body shaming. The Hodder tropes also include family trauma. Check the author’s page for how those subjects are treated if they affect your choices.
Who the flight crew romance suits
Mile High should suit readers who like hockey as a backdrop more than as a game-by-game story, who enjoy a hero who performs a villain role, and who want a heroine with a clear boundary. It may not suit you if you dislike a hero who treats the heroine as staff at the outset, if you prefer a college setting or if you want no bantering hostility. In the opening chapters, look for:
- Zanders’s act: does his persona feel like a performance with cracks, or is it simply unpleasant to read?
- Stevie’s competence: does the flight attendant job feel real and respected, not just a way to put her near the team?
- The call button: do the small, repeated provocations read as sparring you enjoy?
- The body-image thread: how does the book write Stevie’s relationship to her body, and does it match what the author’s notes lead you to expect?
Reading alongside
Elle Kennedy’s The Deal is another hockey romance with a cocky captain, but the author’s page puts it on a college campus, with a tutoring-for-a-pretend-date bargain driving the plot. Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker pairs a figure skater with a team captain who must share a rink after a facilities mishap. Both are campus stories; Mile High puts two adults in a professional workplace, at altitude, and builds its friction from job roles and a public image.
A different kind of hockey pressure
Puck Defiance by Alisson Bento introduces Portland Pioneers captain Webb amid a concealed injury, a coach’s expectations and a coach’s-daughter premise. It connects through obligations surrounding a hockey career, while taking a darker route than team-plane friction. Compare the sports romance shelf for that difference.
A Date Before Faceoff follows Ivy Sloan and goalie Noel Hart around a fake date and two careers. Their original adult M/F story precedes Breakaway on Ice, not Puck Defiance, and its intimacy is closed-door. Read the opening online; email access unlocks the remaining chapters.
Sources checked 20–21 October 2026. Reading suggestions compare advertised premises; they do not promise matching heat, consent dynamics, relationship structures, content or endings.
