
Assistant to the Villain
romantic comedy
Series · romance
The Vancouver Storm series by Stephanie Archer has 5 known books (5 published) and is best read in publication order, starting with Behind the Net (2023). The latest book with a fully recorded publication date is The Wild Card.
Start here: Behind the Net (2023) — then read straight through in publication order.
The date order of published books and any announced future entries — the default way to read the series.
Behind the Net is the novel that opens Vancouver Storm, by Stephanie Archer, first published in 2023 at 424 pages. It's followed in the reading order by The Fake Out, in a series of 5 books that ran from 2023 to 2026.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Behind the NetThe Fake Out is the 2nd entry in Vancouver Storm, by Stephanie Archer, published in 2023 at 438 pages. It follows Behind the Net and precedes The Wingman in the reading order.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Fake OutThe Wingman is the 3rd entry in Vancouver Storm, by Stephanie Archer, published in 2024 at 448 pages. It follows The Fake Out and precedes Gloves Off in the reading order.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The WingmanGloves Off is the 4th entry in Vancouver Storm, by Stephanie Archer, published in 2025 at 464 pages. It follows The Wingman and precedes The Wild Card in the reading order.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Gloves OffThe Wild Card is the 5th entry in Vancouver Storm, by Stephanie Archer, published in 2026 at 464 pages. It follows Gloves Off and closes out the 5-book series, which ran from 2023 to 2026.
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Wild CardVancouver Storm is Stephanie Archer's viral hockey romance series, following the players, staff and found family orbiting a fictional NHL team in Vancouver. Each book is a self-contained, extremely spicy romance built around a specific trope — grumpy/sunshine, fake dating, single dad, forced proximity, friends-to-lovers — with the hockey season as a backdrop rather than the point. Archer writes long, banter-heavy books (400+ pages is typical) with slow-burn tension, explicit love scenes, and a found-family thread that runs through the whole roster as recurring characters from earlier books turn up on the ice or the sidelines in later ones.
The series took off on BookTok for its combination of genuinely funny dialogue, emotionally earnest arcs (grief, single parenthood, career pressure, family estrangement) and unapologetically steamy pacing, and it's regularly recommended alongside Sarina Bowen's Brooklyn Bruisers and Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus as a gateway into hockey romance. Archer self-published the series before Piatkus (Little, Brown UK) picked it up for wide release, so most books exist in both original indie editions and trade paperback reissues with matching covers.
Five: Behind the Net (2023), The Fake Out (2023), The Wingman (2024), Gloves Off (2025) and The Wild Card (2026). No sixth book has been announced as of August 2026.
Publication order, starting with Behind the Net. Each book follows a different couple and stands alone, but recurring characters and running jokes build across the series.
No. Her Queen's Cove / Rhodes Brothers series (That Kind of Guy, The Wrong Mr. Right, In Your Dreams Holden Rhodes, Finn Rhodes Forever) is a separate, unconnected small-town romance series.
Very — these are open-door, explicit romances with frequent, detailed love scenes, in line with other viral BookTok hockey romance like Icebreaker.
It's not formally declared complete, but no new book has been announced since The Wild Card released in February 2026.
Reading order last verified .