Review: Entertaining Story But Missing Something
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2014
Good reads Blurb:<blockquote>Kylie Scott returns with the highly anticipated follow-up to international bestseller Lick.Mal Ericson, drummer for the world famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast—at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn’t plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn’t count on finding the one right girl. Anne Rollins never thought she’d ever meet the rock god who plastered her teenage bedroom walls—especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones. But being paid to play the pretend girlfriend to a wild life-of-the-party drummer couldn’t end well. No matter how hot he is. Or could it?</blockquote>Anne Rollins was unequivocally having a bad day. Arriving home after a long day at work she walked into her apartment - her almost entirely empty apartment. After feeling terrible all day about the conversation she was going to have with her roommate she came home to find that her old friend had ditched her, moving out and leaving Anne in debt for the two months of rent, bills, and food that she'd spotted Skye for while she searched for a new job. All those years of friendship down the toilet because Skye was too much of a loser to face up to her debt. And Anne was too much of a doormat not to allow situations like this to keep cropping up. So when Anne's neighbor from across the hall, Lauren, sticks her head in and sees what's happened and hears the rest about the debt, she and her boyfriend Nate drag Anne to a party with them.The party just happens to be at the new condo Ev and David bought. Ev had been their neighbor before she married David, from the band Stage Dive, one drunken night in Vegas. But this isn't their story. . . Anne says hello, grabs a beer and when her phone rings she heads out onto the balcony to hear. Turns out it's her boss and crush, Reece. She pours out her tale of woe, Reece tells her he never liked Skye, then asks her to cover a shift for him. Out of beer Anne steels herself for going back inside when a deep voice offers her another. Startled she turns and accepts, only to discover that the stranger who'd just overheard her embarrassing tale is none other than her all-time crush, Malcolm Ericson. The Mal, who just happens to be the drummer of Stage Dive, and her favorite member of the band, is offering her a beer and talking to her. He gently teases her a bit and they get to talking.Somehow she ends up agreeing to playing his pseudo girlfriend for an undisclosed period of time. The next day when she comes home from work she finds that Mal had actually followed through on what she thought was a joke - he'd moved in with her. Lauren had let him in. Mal worried that Anne wouldn't like to sofa he'd picked out for her, showing that there is definitely more to him than meets the eye, something Anne had already begun to suspect. Thus begins an extremely odd courtship, where neither member seems to know when the acting ended and real relationship began.As to be expected there are many bumps along the way, but the ride is mostly fun. The problem is that both of them are deeply wounded, and aren't sharing with anyone, let alone a fake partner. Will they be able to get past their individual issues to let each other in, or will they be too stubborn and destroy the beginning of a really good thing? Interestingly they share similar problems in regard to who the problem involves, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum, so it is a bit of a challenge to really relate to what the other suffering.In many ways this book is similar to its predecessor, <em>Lick</em>, in the emotional roller coaster that both of them are on. It was nice to watch Mal pull Anne out of her shell, bringing her closer to the carefree child she'd been before everything fell apart. And watching him push her to define her own boundaries and stop allowing people to take advantage of her sweet nature. In turn Anne got Mal to calm down, settle into his own skin, and allow himself to be vulnerable on occasion. Not too mention the way they accidentally drag other friends along with them. Especially Ev, as she'd made it crystal clear to the rest of the band that they weren't allowed to poach from her pool of friends. Which of course leads one to wonder, will Jimmy and/or Ben end up with other friends of Ev's?