CBR16 Book 49: "Not Another Love Song" by Julie Soto

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Rock star or musician (this one has both)

Gwen Jackson started playing the violin at eleven and now, over a decade later, she is part of a popular ensemble orchestra and dreams of one day being famous enough to play solos and tour on her own. To pay the bills, she occasionally plays weddings on weekends with her roommate. Being told by the wedding planner that the bride wanted cello and piano, rather than violin, Gwen is forced to do her best and improvise, even though she's barely ever played the cello. She's even more flustered when the cello she's allowed to borrow belongs to Xander Thorne, popular rock star and master cellist. 

Gwen knows her performance is mediocre at best, and is painfully aware of the scrutiny of one of her musical idols. While she's loved Thorne and Roses, Xander's band for years, as well as played with him in the same orchestra for over a year, Xander doesn't seem to even know she existed prior to this wedding appearance. He certainly notices her afterward. Shortly after their first proper meeting, Gwen is promoted to First Chair at the Pops Orchestra, a position that Xander has wanted for years. He wants to despise this seemingly timid nobody but is forced to admit that she is very talented, and has every potential to become a star if she just learns to let go and forget about the audience watching her. 

While they initially dislike and distrust each other, there is also an undeniable attraction between them, and after a memorable evening when Xander invites Gwen back to his apartment to see his instruments (not actually a euphemism), it becomes clear that they collaborate beautifully together (and also really want to bang each other). Once their relationship becomes public, however, it turns out Xander's manager is less than thrilled, while Gwen's superiors at the Pops Orchestra want to mine it for ticket sales. Gwen and Xander also have very different ideas of where their career paths should lead. Will they be able to find a happy ending together?

I read Julie Soto's first novel, Forget Me Not, last year and mostly enjoyed the story of wedding planner Ama eventually reuniting with her lost love, florist extraordinaire Elliot. Both characters turn up in cameos in this novel as well. It seems that Soto, who like a lot of authors out there today, got her start as a fan fiction writer, and this book is actually a reworked Reylo fan fic that she didn't initially get a publishing deal for. There are obvious signs throughout the book that the protagonists are based on Rey and Kylo Ren, but I didn't mind it all that much. Obviously, this is a rivals to lovers story, and while it ended up being quite a cute romance, it starts out a bit rough, mainly just because I am never really a fan of the 'being mean and rude to the object of your infatuation' trope. Most of the book is written from Gwen's POV, with the occasional chapter from Xander's, so the reader is aware of how fascinated and besotted he is before Gwen is clued into the fact, mostly again, because he's rude, dismissive and outright unpleasant to her when they actually interact. 

Neither Gwen nor Xander have had the easiest time growing up. It also turns out that despite being from very different backgrounds (Xander's very privileged, Gwen's not so much so), the same woman actually taught them to play their instruments. Once Xander shows a more vulnerable side, he becomes a much less frustrating character. Part of what made this book so enjoyable was some of the supporting characters. Gwen's roommate and some of Xander's band members were a lot of fun. The villain of the story and their motivations could have been more nuanced and thought out, though.

In my review for Forget Me Not, I wrote that I hope Ama's photographer stepsister gets her own book. I still hope that, and I also hope that in the next story, the protagonists aren't Rey and Kylo Ren with the serial numbers filed off. 

Judging a book by its cover: I totally get why the author is excited to have this image on the cover of the book, it's a very memorable and sexy scene in the story. However, the cello in question is very clearly an electric one, which is NOT what is pictured here. I know that this might not matter to most readers, but I find it exasperating. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 83: "Forget Me Not" by Julie Soto

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Ama Torres is an excellent wedding planner, who really gives her all to make sure the weddings she arranges go off without a hitch. However, personally, she doesn't believe in marriage or in relationships that really last a lifetime. Probably because her mother has been married so many times (Ama has arranged a lot of her weddings). Now she has a whole host of former step-siblings, some of which she works with, others who she can rope in when she needs a favour. Despite Ama usually doing fairly small, intimate weddings, she is contracted to arrange the wedding of a famous Instagram star (a woman Ama sees as a personal role model). It will be Ama's biggest job yet, and her former employer is making things difficult by booking up a lot of the available vendors on the date in question.

Another complication is that the brides have contracted Elliot Bloom to do the flowers for the wedding. Ama and Elliot have a history - which ended when Ama broke Elliot's heart several years previous. Now she's going to have to arrange the biggest, most high-profile wedding of her career while working closely with a man who most likely hates her. 

Romances starring commitment-phobic wedding planners seem to be a subgenre of its own. Ama (not going to tell you her full name, but it's a great one) has a lot of issues with relationships, mainly due to her mother's many many marriages. She prefers simple flings until she meets Elliot, who is the complete opposite. When Elliot falls for someone, it is forever - which doesn't work out so well for either of them.

This is a really fun second chance romance, where about half of the story is told in flashbacks, so we see the beginning of Ama and Elliot's relationship, and discover what finally went wrong between them. The present-day story, with Ama ultra-competently finding solutions to all of the wealthy brides' many demands, even being sabotaged by her former boss, is a lot of fun too, although it becomes painfully clear that Ama needs a ton of therapy. She is far too much of a workaholic, and then there are all the commitment issues because of her mom's serial monogamy. I would have liked there to be some kind of acknowledgment that at some point, after the story's end, she would deal with some of these issues, to make sure she doesn't get cold feet and hurt poor Elliot again.

I know Ms. Soto has another romance coming out in the summer of 2024, but nothing about what it will be about. I hope she at some point in the future writes a book about Ama's beautiful and funny photographer stepsister, because she seems like she would be a great heroine. 

Judging a book by its cover: The US cover for this makes it seem like Reylo fan fiction because the guy on the cover is yet another Adam Driver look-alike. The UK cover has both characters looking far too cutesy (although Ama is described as looking a lot like a teenager). I don't think either cover really fits the book very well. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read