Review: Beautiful start to a new series
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 20, 2014
Changing Tunes is the first in what I think is going to be a pretty fantastic new NA series.  When we first meet Ashley it’s in Heartstrings (book two in the YA Love Notes series).  There really is nothing redeeming about Ashley.  She is a “Queen B” and thrives off the attention and drama she gets/creates wherever she goes.  She’s selfish, manipulative and well a straight up bitch.  Without hesitation she went after the characters that I had grown to love in the Love Notes series.  When Heather said she was going to be doing a new series and the first book would have Ashley as the “heroine”, I flinched. Could it be done?  I had no love for this character…all she did was piss me off and make me want to bitch slap her senseless.  But the thing you need to know about Heather is she’s always up for the challenge.  She saw something in Ashley that I didn’t…not at first.  When she explained her vision for Changing Tunes I got my ass on board and wound up falling in love with Ash and all the new characters you’ll meet.  In the first few chapters of Changing Tunes I was rooting for Ash.  I NEEDED her to get an HEA…she deserved true friendship and love; things you learn quickly she had never in her life experienced.When Changing Tunes begins, Ash is off to college.  She didn’t have an easy end to her senior year of high school and struggled with a traumatic event that the people closest to her never believed her about.  Her goal is to change…to be a new Ash for a new place and time.  It’s also something she quickly discovers isn’t the easiest thing to do – change that is – when the pressures of your old life still haunt you.  I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call Ash “boy-crazy” but she definitely can appreciate a fine looking guy and used to have no qualms about whether he was taken or not.  Though she’s leaving her man-stealing ways in the past, she still needs the control she feels from those one-nighters.  That is until she meets Zeke.  Meeting and eventually letting Zeke in releases something in Ash that I’m not sure she truly recognized was broken or maybe she wasn’t fully ready to admit was. When you grow up a certain way and it’s all you know it is what becomes your “norm”.  But the way her new friends, including Zeke and her roommate, Mac, shows her how people love, how they are compassionate, how they take care of each other and how experiencing those things lets you heal.Both Zeke and Ash are immediately attracted to one another…but don’t get freaked out it’s not the dreaded “insta-love”.  When they meet for the first time Ash is contemplatively taking a trip down memory lane and literally runs right into Zeke.  Snark, sass and ‘tude ensues but the two leave a lasting impression on each other.  It takes a while for these two to give into their feelings both emotional and physical for one another; they both have their reasons for needing to stay focused on their schooling and not each other.  It’s a challenge for them both, one they ultimately give into and something that eventually threatens to break them apart.Zeke has no room in his life for any kind of disruptions; even for a beautiful and somewhat damaged young woman that has grabbed his attention.  He’s made mistakes in his past that he has taken full responsibility for and which are part of the driving force behind his focus on school. But there is just something that continually draws him to Ash and he can’t let go.  Those mistakes I mentioned?  The ones that he lets drive his every choice in the now? Nope can’t tell ya…but man will it be a surprise and also the very reason that might pull Ash and Zeke apart.There is no way you can’t walk away from Changing Tunes without compassion and love for Ash and all the other wonderful characters.  It’s one of those things where you really don’t know someone until you KNOW them…even if they are a fictional characters. There is so much in Ash’s past that drives the way she talks, the way she thinks, the way she treats others and lets herself be treated.  Heather did an incredible job once again drawing me into the characters, their stories and making me not just connect but feel.  I may have required some of my trusty Puffs a few times.  In the end you are left with an HEA but wanting more. Heather has a lot of plans for this series but I hope she will give us some more Ash and Zeke…I definitely want to see what happens after “Happily Ever After”.