Review: Barton Belle
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 23, 2013
You know what?  This book is ok.  I am not convinced it could happen -- but I like the summer music festival background and the interpersonal situations.  Ellie is half of a folk-singing duo.  She has reached the end of the line with Mitch, her singing partner -- they want different things from each other and their music.  She drags him to perform with her in the Kansas music festival and he complains the whole way.  Trent is a lead singer for a high profile rock band that is headlining the Hawk and Dove Festival. Trent would not normally play at a midwestern Woodstock, but he's searching for something (a return to the band's roots) that's different from their sold-out stadium venues.  If Ellie's duo is the dove musical style at the festival, the Trent Parker Band is the hard rocking hawk.  Both Ellie and Trent are musical enough to appreciate each other's talents.  They are attractive people and have some good chemistry.  In searching for something new, they both find each other.Here are some plot points that were problematic for me.  If I had camped out for three nights to see Trent Parker's concert, and a virtual unknown folk singer joined the four-man group onstage, I would not be a happy audience member.  If I were the female manager of the Trent Parker band, especially if I were nursing an unrequited love for the frontman, I would not sleep on the tour bus.  Finally, if my singing partner had a personal meltdown crisis, I would not ditch him, wasted and dehydrating, hundreds of miles from home in a cornfield, in summer heat and rain, with guitars to transport.  I don't care what he said or how goofy he dresses, that's just mean.