Review: Didn't feel the connection between these two - but a cute premise
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2014
Plot in 3 sentences: Katrina Lewis (recently widowed and a librarian) and her adorable young daughter, Abbey, return to their small home town where Katrina brings a singer/songwriter to perform at the library. The artist, Adrian Graves, surprisingly turns out to be an ex-famous rock star who is divorced and estranged from both wife and fully grown daughter. Katrina and Adrian have instant chemistry, fall in love and have a HEA (no cliffhanger).I loved the premise of this book. Adrian, although a former rock stud, is not a super tall, super hunky, super steamy buff dude. He is not an over the top alpha-male. He is a bit on the graying side, smokes too much, is of average height and build. There is nothing over the top about this guy. It's nice to read about a fairly normal looking guy.The book had a great start, where you immediately feel compassion for Katrina and her daughter. Katrina had a wonderful relationship with her husband, and his death was incredibly difficult for her.The book then launches into her relationship with Adrian. How she needs to move on from her dead husband, and how Adrian is attempting to reconcile his past with his present/future.Adrian is pretty interesting - he is also from England. I loved the way the author uses the British-slang and pronunciation in the dialogue. It wasn't too difficult to read. It really brought his accent to life. I really dislike smoke/cigarettes, but it was understandable that after all the drugs,etc - how smoking make seem like a minor offense.Abbey was cute, but not too over the top cute. She added great sweetness to the book.Katrina is strong, shows her stressed out mother moments, but we moms can totally related to that.I didn't really understand where the insta-love emanated from. But I tried to go with the flow.Also, I am not sure how Adrian fell so fast for Katrina and Abbey. I could see more of a tentative friendship bloom first, then close friendship, then love. But they seemed to go immediately to the dating stage with heavy emotional involvement.I just didn't feel  the connection between the two.The presence of the dead husband lingered on a bit too long for me as well. Would have like to have that issued resolved a bit sooner. Then work on the whole famous ex-rocker enters the quiet life of a family of two. How did they handle it. What happened next?Also, what the heck did Adrian do all day? I kept thinking that we'd find out later that he was working on a secret album. Also, would have like to have seem more of Adrian with ex-wife and daughter. That would have been interesting. Seemed to skim over that a bit.How did Katrina afford to raise a child on a librarian's salary. Those jobs pay so little.May still like to read other books by this author since it was still interesting.