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My Review:Title: Lies & Lullabies
Author: Sarina Bowen
Series: Hush Note #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: September 22, 2020
Format: Audio ALC
Narrator: Tim Paige, Erin Mallon
Length: 7 hours and 57 minutes
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Potential Triggers: View Spoiler »
Source: the author
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 New Release Challenge, Lenoreo's COYER Quarantine Edition
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:
Blurb:Summer nights and star-crossed lovers! From USA Today bestselling author Sarina Bowen.
Once upon a time, he gave me a summer of friendship, followed by one perfect night. We shared a lot during our short time together. But he skipped a few crucial details.
I didn’t know he was a rock star.
I didn’t know his real name.
Neither of us knew I’d get pregnant.
And I sure never expected to see him again.
Five years later, his tour bus pulls up in Nest Lake, Maine. My little world is about to be shattered by loud music and the pounding of my own foolish heart.
I received a free copy through the author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review/opinion.
4.5 stars — I told Brett that this one was an amalgamation of some of my favourite tropes: secret identity, secret baby, celebrity…even a bit of second chance. And it fulfilled everything I love about those tropes and more. Basically, Lenore was a happy reader…well, listener.
Jonas was NOTHING like I was expecting for a rock star. I thought at times he would be too good to be true, but he was just genuinely good. He still had flaws, he still had missteps, but he did everything from his heart. He was seriously swoonworthy.
Kira was both strong and vulnerable in this book. She went through a lot in her young life, and had to make some tough decisions, but she powered through and survived in the best ways. Sometimes her distrust was hard for me to take, but I did understand that she was just wary…that these were changes she wasn’t expecting, and she just honestly had no idea how to process them. She had reasonable doubts, but I wanted her to get there faster, because *I* could see in Jonas’s head, and knew how genuine he was.
I love that we got quite a bit of flashbacks to the past, and early on, so we could really see and understand the relationship that they had back then, how it played out, how a whole bunch of other things played into how things went down, how it was a perfect storm in so many ways for the two of them. They were exactly what they each needed in someone else at that time, but Jonas is right: it wasn’t the right time for them.
I appreciated that they BOTH made missteps — and pretty huge missteps at times — and that while there were reasons, they weren’t infallible reasons. They were selfish reasons at times, and hurt reasons, but they didn’t try to excuse themselves too much. In general they owned up when they didn’t do everything perfectly.
The chemistry between Kira and Jonas was pretty fucking hot. I mean, I don’t know what to tell you other than hooooweeee…
There were some pretty integral secondary characters in this story, and they all added their own unique touches:
Vivi was pretty adorable. Sometimes I feel like I wish we could have seen a bit more conflict with her learning to accept her Daddy, because it all felt a bit easy. And then at other times I’m glad we got more time on other things.
I ADORED Adam, like those-capitals-are-necessary ADORED him. I ached for his little side story. I squealed at some of the moments we got with him. I appreciated that we got to see how Jonas showing up affected him as well. I NEED a side novella. Like, NEED it. Like, there has to be some anthology that he would be perfect for. Please. PLEASE.
Likewise, Ethan. Just, his friendship to Jonas added so much to Jonas’s end of the story. It wouldn’t have been the same without him.
I am epically curious about Quinn and Nixon’s respective stories. There was enough in this one to tease me and get me to need their stories as well, without them taking over the story really. Just enough.
And I loved that we got to see more of Kira and Adam’s Dad than I was expecting. I didn’t know I needed that, but I did.
The narrators were pretty solid. I’m a pretty big Erin Mallon fan, and she came through for me as she always did. This is my first Tim Paige I think, and while I loved his emotion, pacing, voices…there was something about his delivery that I was only okay on. It was like a cadence or something, but I’m not quite sure that’s right. It’s 100% a personal taste thing though.
So yeah. This was exactly the kind of romance I think I was needing in my life. I can’t wait for more in the series, but what a way to start.
What a great review! You reminded me of all the reasons I enjoyed this book. I think you liked it even more than I did!