TBR Challenge: ROCK ADDICTION, by Nalini Singh

 The topic of this month is Contemporary

Published: 2014

Genre: Contemporary

My Rating: 3 stars

Part of a series: Rock Kiss, book 1

In April we have to look for a book in the contemporary genre.

It was in my TBR pile because I read Slave to sensation for my personal Top 100 challenge, and although paranormal is not my cup of tea, I liked Nalini Singh’s narrative style and wanted to try something written by her in a subgenre I could enjoy.

Molly Webster is a young librarian that works and lives in Auckland (New Zealand). BTW, yes, I’m a sucker for any novel set Down Under.

Molly lives a very low profile life. Her mother was an alcoholic, her father one of those hypocritical politicians that talks about family values while being unfaithful to his wife. He was discovered with a teenager and the following scandal put Molly, then fifteen years old, in the spotlight. Therefore now that she is in her twenties, she wants to live as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.

Both her parents are dead. And her only family is a recently discovered half-sister, Thea, who works as a publicist for a rock band. That’s why Molly is in a party and meet sexy rock star Zachary Fox.

Zachary has seen her from afar and likes her smile. So he decides that’s a woman he’d like to know better. He comes from a family with problems. He was rejected by his mother. Love is a feeling he’s learnt to distrust.

They go out of the party together. And what started as a one-night stand develops into a ‘one month stand’ - and more. From the beginning, Zachary wants to have Molly in her life, he knows it’s not only sex. Molly thinks is going to be a very short thing, she’s afraid she cannot cope with the public life, the paparazzi, the groupies and all that that comes with a rock star life.

And that’s the story, in a nutshell, whether Zachary will be able to introduce Molly little by little in his world in a way that she will not run away scared.

I know that a job whose motto is ‘sex drugs & rock‘n’roll’ does not sound like good husband material. But this is fantasy! It’s a kind of whitewashed rock fantasy in which the musicians can be tender, generous, centred and mature, ready to compromise themselves in a long-term relationship, and faithful to just one woman. Moreover, to a woman that is normal, with real curves, just as you and me, and not a supermodel. The perfect rock fantasy, I told you. You can even imagine Zach as your favorite rock star. I imagined him with the sexy look of David Gahan in his bad years - but without the ‘bad’ part. And a bass-baritone voice, male, sensual and deep. My favourite male voice.

This book didn’t rock my world –no pun intended- but it worked very well for me. I found it a little bit longer than the plot required. There was no sexual tension to speak of. Molly and Zach have sex from the first night. In a sense, it was like reading a male/male romance. It’s not a matter of will they or not, but of what happens after the sex. And the rest of the book is an endless cycle of talk and sex, then talk and sex, and then a little more of talk and sex.

They talked too much, and you never know if it’s going to be relevant to the plot or just a couple talking about the weather, so to speak. I was reminded more than once of the sentence - Don’t tell, show. I’m not sure if the past of the characters could have been told in a more dramatic way. Perhaps flashbacks? Or the same story being told from different POVs? I don’t know.

The sex scenes are hot, although I have to recognize that I prefer less sex scenes in a book but with more relation to the plot. As any other scene, they should make the story progress - or at least show you something about the character. And here they didn’t. Or it could be that it was something so subtle that I didn’t get it. I think it was Jennifer Crusie who wrote that sex is what the characters are doing in the scene, but it’s not what the scene is about. That’s a problem I had with this book.  It was like two good friends of yours having sex –you’re happy for them, but you’re not interested in watching it. So I’m afraid I skipped some of them.

Anyway, I quite enjoyed this novel.

NB.- I have to confess that this was not my first choice for this month’s TBR Challenge. I started Suddenly last summer, by Sarah Morgan, but left it around 43% of the book, as I wasn’t enjoying it. Rock Addiction was a lot nicer. 

NB 2.- After reading and writing this review about a month ago, I bought the other two books of the series –a novella & book 2. I've just read them and OMG, aren't they hot! I loved those stories, but I haven't written those reviews yet.