Broken Hollywood by Lora Richardson

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Title: Broken Hollywood
Author: Lora Richardson
Series: Sparrow Sisters #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: August 13, 2020
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 289
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2021 COYER Winter
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

He’s a movie star who needs a break from fame. Lucky for him, she has no idea who he is.

Catherine Sparrow is obsessed with caves. She spends nearly every day at Alden Caverns with Otto, her eighty-year-old best friend. Known to most of the boys in town as Cave Girl, Cat long ago decided to leave dating to her sisters. But then Otto’s gorgeous grandson Jesse arrives.

Jesse Relic, the hottest movie star in Hollywood, needs to get out of LA. Burdened by guilt and weighed down by sorrow, he runs to the only person who can possibly help him get his life in order, his grandfather Otto. Hoping to hide from the world in his grandfather’s caves, he does not expect to find a beautiful, intriguing woman working there. The best part? She doesn’t recognize him.

While hiking a passage of the cave together, Jesse and Cat are trapped inside when she injures her knee. The intensity of their predicament ignites sparks in the tiny cavern. As they grow closer, Jesse knows he has to tell Cat he’s an actor. But she loves her simple, quiet life, and his life as a celebrity is louder than most. If he tells her the truth, will he lose her forever?

Broken Hollywood is the first book in the Sparrow Sisters Series. If you want an intense slow-burn romance that will make your heart race, you’ll enjoy this celebrity meets ordinary girl love story!

My Review:

3.5 stars — This one started off a little slower and…something for me.  Like, the writing felt a little more basic.  But then I got sucked in and enjoyed myself to the end, so not sure if it was me or what.

I will mention right now that this is a young new adult book.  I don’t personally mind those, I feel like characters in that age range don’t have to be all sophistication and sex, but I know it can have the expectation.  Both Cat and Jesse came across a bit younger than I initially expected for 19 and 23.  Not unrealistic, it just threw me off and took me a minute to adjust.  As such the steam factor was super low, but the kisses were fantastic and the romance was sweet.

Cat felt so sheltered in some ways…but it was like a self-imposed sheltered.  I loved how truly enthralled she was with caving and all that went with that — I got excited watching her get excited.  I worried that her walls were too high and she’d start to annoy me, but she had a lot of people in her life to bounce problems off of, and it worked…her growth was realistic.

Jesse was really not at all what I expected from this celebrity read.  My heart broke for the grief he was struggling with, and the guilt that went along with it.  I loved seeing the relationship he was developing with Otto, even though they hadn’t talked much prior to his visit.  It was nice to see him have people who loved and supported him, and that eventually included Cat.

They were pretty cute together — a classic crush to more dealio.  Like I said, it was completely different from what I was expecting from a celebrity romance, but I wasn’t disappointed.

There were some fun secondary characters in this one — from Cat’s sisters, to her parents, to her Aunt Glory, to Otto.  They all added colour and support.

So yeah.  Solid romance.  I’m not sure I’ll continue with Val and Audrey’s stories, but I did enjoy Cat’s.