grand central publishing

Rating: ★★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 400 pages
Author: Jeff Zentner
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: April 30th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, with his trauma festering and Jim Beam flowing through his veins, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly.

Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter at his town’s new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention. Told through perspectives alternating between his senior year of high school, his time coming up with Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and the present, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a story of coming home, undoing past heartbreaks, and navigating grief, and is a reminder that there are next acts in life, no matter how unlikely they may seem.

WHAT A STORY.

I fell in love with Colton Gentry. I loved this redemption story of a fan who really has been brought to a deep valley and found a way back out again. I appreciated that it wasn’t linear and that mistakes were still made. Colton always remained a character to root for and someone you wanted to see succeed.

The second chance romance was executed perfectly too. I liked having the flashback chapters that showed just how much Luann and Colton were in love with each other. Full of young mistakes and wanting to repair those bridges and boundaries. I loved how they reconnected and how they had this soulmate kind of vibe about them.

I loved this audiobook and I think that this is such an underrated contemporary romance book!!

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: moderate
Romance: low explicit open door
Violence: low-moderate
Content Warnings: MC struggles with alcoholism, mass shooting discussed, grief and loss depiction, death of a friend and parent

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: Thriller/Mystery
Length: 416 pages
Author: Katherine St. John
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: May 4th, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From Katherine St. John, author of The Lion’s Den, comes another sublimely escapist thriller: When dangerously handsome megastar Cole Power hires his ex-wife, Stella Rivers, to act in his son’s film, he sparks a firestorm on an isolated island that will unearth long-buried secrets — and unravel years of lies.

In the midst of a sizzling hot summer, some of Hollywood’s most notorious faces are assembled on the idyllic Caribbean island of St. Genesius to film The Siren, starring dangerously handsome megastar Cole Power playing opposite his ex-wife, Stella Rivers. The surefire blockbuster promises to entice audiences with its sultry storyline and intimately connected cast.

Three very different women arrive on set, each with her own motive. Stella, an infamously unstable actress, is struggling to reclaim the career she lost in the wake of multiple, very public breakdowns. Taylor, a fledgling producer, is anxious to work on a film she hopes will turn her career around after her last job ended in scandal. And Felicity, Stella’s mysterious new assistant, harbors designs of her own that threaten to upend everyone’s plans.

With a hurricane brewing offshore, each woman finds herself trapped on the island, united against a common enemy. But as deceptions come to light, misplaced trust may prove more perilous than the storm itself.

WILD RIDE.

Goodness this book took me in so many directions I could hardly keep a handle on everything happening. Which definitely kept the pages turning.

What I did realize though is that this type of thriller isn’t my favorite? The writing is great, the story is intense and disturbing, but something about it just didn’t click for me in the end. Maybe some of the subject matter was a bit too much. I can’t quite pinpoint the vibe.

I liked that this kept me guessing at every turn. The flashback scenes added to the history and built up to the reveals well. As the hurricane rocked the island and crap really started to hit the fan I HAD to know where things were going.

I’m glad everything worked out in the end and that there was an epilogue. This kind of story had to have that closure. An intense tale for sure.

Overall audience notes:

Thriller/Mystery
Language: strong
Romance: multiple brief open door
Violence: mild-strong
Trigger/Content Warnings: suicide, murder, physical altercations, gun violence, kidnapping, drug use, rape, forced miscarriage, substance abuse, nonconsensual drugging