Monday 25 July 2016

Notes & Roses by Rozenn Scott



246 Pages:
Stanford Creek #1
E-book

The blurb:

Cody is running from the ghosts of his past. Will Megan's love be enough for him to make a stand?

With his stalker behind bars, former boy band singer CJ Taylor is starting a new life. He’s bought a house in a small Vermont town, and taken back the name he was born with. Two years have passed since he was last in the public eye and as Cody Brennan, he’s finally feeling safe. Desperate to find some peace, all he wants is to connect to the music in his head, write new lyrics and forget the tragedy in his past.

What he doesn’t count on is meeting Megan. From her amber eyes to her tempting smile, she is everything he thought he could do without, the very thing he promised himself to avoid. But he’s thrown into her family and her life, and suddenly he’s found a place he wants to stay.

Megan Campbell is horrified when a stranger, covered in blood, collapses in her shop. When that same stranger, wild and angry, abruptly becomes someone very different, it’s not her safety she is worrying about, it’s her heart.

Megan’s first instinct is to tame the powerful attraction she has to this stranger, but very soon desire becomes something more. Between them can they find the words to make things right? And can they stay safe long enough to fall in love?

My thoughts:

It has been some time since I last read an M/F romance. Not so much because I’ve suddenly fallen out of love with the genre, but more because I was trying to catch up with the new to me M/M genre. Notes and Roses was a wonderful book to take me back to my (reading) roots.

The story hooked from the start when a bleeding, bearded man stumbles in the shop run by Megan Campbell and her cousin Rachel, and collapses. Despite his dishevelled appearance and the potential thread he might be, Megan can’t deny she’s interested in the stranger. When he returns to the shop, all cleaned up, to apologize that interest turns into attraction.

Cody’s reaction to Megan is pretty much the same; he can’t get her out of his head. But he’s nowhere near ready to share all his ghosts and demons with somebody else, no matter how he might feel about her.

Despite Megan’s very protective brothers and extended family having their doubts about Cody and Cody himself being afraid that getting close to Megan will mean his secrets will be revealed, the two of them can’t fight the attraction between them and very quickly grow very close. And, as Cody’s past infringes on his present, danger lurks, from all sides.

In the past I’ve often been frustrated with M/F romances because, with a few exceptions, they seemed to present me with either helpless, fragile leading ladies or their exact opposite, women so independent they end up acting stupidly just to prove they don’t need anyone. Megan in this book, thankfully, fell into neither of those categories. She was the kind of leading lady I do like to read about; independent, with a mind of her own and yet smart enough to know that she can’t always do everything herself. She may resent the way her brothers are over protective when it comes to her, she is not ashamed to ask for their help when she needs it. It made her both relatable and recognisable and I found myself rooting for her right from the start.

The same balance was present when it came to Cody. He hasn’t begun to come to terms with everything that has happened to him in the past, and at times appears to be afraid of his own shadow. But when push comes to shove he is brave enough to be honest and selfless enough to think of Megan first.

I enjoyed this book. It had the right combination of romance and suspense—even if I did think Megan was a bit too naïve when it came to the man who had been bothering her. The attraction between Megan and Cody was palatable from the start and the intimate scenes between them were sexy without being overly descriptive. Finally I have to say that the title of this book was a stroke of genius on the author's part. If it's the job of a title to cover the contents of the book, Notes & Roses worked on every level. 

Long story short: this was a delightful and gripping read and I’m looking forward to the next book in this series.

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