Review: Emotional & Touching Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 6, 2013
Rock Him was touching and sweet with a slow build romance that left my heart soaring!Asher Lowe is the lead singer, and founder of Spade, a tremendously famous rock band. While he was never one to all-out party, as Asher approaches forty, some of the aspects of his lifestyle have lost their appeal. With all that said, he's far from prepared to handle raising a five-year old on his own, which is the situation he has been thrown into. After receiving the devastating news that his sister, Dee, died in a car accident he is left with the care of his five year-old niece, Ella. He loves her to bits but between dealing with his own grief and Ella's he's treading water fast.Enter Maddy, she's a college grad student in her last semester of school. She catches the eye of Asher when she helps him out with Ella on a plane ride home. She isn't the usual star-struck fan he encounters, and she's a total natural with his niece. When he can't find anyone to click with Ella, Asher barges into her life and convinces her to be Ella's nanny. Maddy's care, concern, and affection for Ella touch Asher's heart. When he finds out Maddy is dealing with chronic rheumatoid arthritis, and the way she deals with it, strong and determined, it makes him admire her even more. Before he knows it, he's falling fast and hard.Maddy is skeptical of Asher and his ability to care Ella. But after she reluctantly accepts the position as nanny, she's touched by how much Asher cares for his niece. Living with Asher, Maddy is surprised to find that he isn't the party animal or womanizer she thought he would be. Even trying to keep boundaries up she can't fight the brewing attraction between them:"Each time she glimpsed his mouth, every time she got close enough to smell his citrusy leather scent, her body quickened. Her feelings for him were much more complicated than lust. Lust she could deny. Her heart ached for him."I want you," he admitted baldly, "More than I've ever wanted anything in my life."Rocker romances are always a little tricky for me. I struggle to believe that someone in that business would find a woman and stay true to her. This wasn't the case for me with Rock Him. Asher has been in the business for a while and is already at the point where the endless opportunity for women no longer holds the thrill it did when he was younger. Plus, he seemed like a serious person who wasn't all about the "fun" aspects of being in a band. Apart from the fame and fortune, he seemed like a normal guy struggling with finding balance. Maddy certainly helps him with that and they slowly fall for each other in the process. Seeing his protective and caring instincts come out for not only Ella but also for Maddy with her illness melted my heart!I appreciated how the author incorporated Maddy's chronic illness into the story and it felt like a realistic portrayal. Maddy leads a mostly normal life, but it shows some of the struggles a person with RA would have to deal with on a daily basis. So many times you read of "perfect" heroines when real life mostly isn't like that.This is my second Rachel Cross story and it won't be my last. She has a way of immediately sucking you into a story! I read this story with rapt attention in one day, and in one sitting.