After a tragic accident, Lincoln West’s dreams of making it big as a guitarist fell apart. Unable to play music, he’s battling a hopeless downward spiral, and takes his friend’s offer to stay at their beach house for the summer. While at an open mike night at local bar Off Beat, he locks eyes with a busboy who doesn’t make Linc feel so broken anymore.

Emmett Westmore lives for the anonymity of busing tables in his aunt’s quirky bar where no one pities him for the fire that killed everyone he loved. He blames himself for the fire, and he doesn’t want anyone to see him—except for Linc. Emmett’s walls drop when he’s around the gorgeous blue-eyed guitarist, but he has a secret that could destroy his budding relationship with Linc.

Both Linc and Emmett are looking for a way to live again…will they let their fears control them or take a chance on something real?

In spite of having some trouble feeling the connection between the main characters in Body Rocks very strongly, the secondary character the author set up to become the focus in its sequel, Steady Stroke, definitely piqued my interest. So I was looking forward to seeing if my issues were a one-time thing. It turns out that while I liked both of the main characters here and definitely felt their connection more, there were a couple of big things that kept this from being a fantastic read.

A year ago, Lincoln West’s chances to make more than a regional name for himself as a musician ended abruptly when his car was run off the road in the middle of the night on the way to the biggest performance of his band’s career. Now he suffers from the aftereffects of the head injury, with blinding migraines being the worst of it… unless, of course, you count being depressed from having nothing left to do and no prospects to do anything about it. Emmett Westmore carries a heavy guilt after the rest of his family perished in a house fire he blames himself for, so in spite of his anxiety to be around people, being a busboy at his aunt’s bar suits him: it’s the perfect hiding place where no one knows him and no one judges him for his past. But when Lincoln and Emmett share eye contact one night, both feel a connection that quickly blossoms into something more. But Emmett also carries another secret that could destroy the new relationship before it can really get going.

Individually, the issues Lincoln and Emmett have prior to the start of the novel make them compelling characters right from the start. They’re damaged from having important pieces of their lives taken from them, and both are drifting through life as a result. As the story reveals the aftereffects of Lincoln’s accident and the cause behind Emmett’s family’s death, it’s hard not to be pulled into their struggles. So once they’ve met and start to explore the attraction they have for one another, unlike in the previous book, I had no trouble feeling it between them. As a result, I was really enjoying the book, until…

It’s hard to discuss the problem I had with the book without giving something away, so I apologize for deliberately being vague. The trope used as the biggest conflict between Lincoln and Emmett surrounds the secret Emmett has that the blurb alludes to. It is one that I’ve seen used before, though usually it comes up toward the end as the set up for the final drama. Here, though, it is introduced before the halfway point. It’s something that not only surprises Emmett when he learns it, it’s something I didn’t expect either. On its surface, the trope isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but instead of then using it as the basis for the rest of the story line, the author lets it fester, pretty much completely without further mention, for another roughly 40% of the book. During this time, the plot focuses a good deal on some of the secondary characters and their issues rather than on Lincoln and Emmett. While these events work to expand the reader’s understanding of the main characters, the fact that these things happen after the reader learns the secret, and are totally unrelated to it, made it hard for me to stay interested in this section of the book. Instead, I was preoccupied with thoughts about how Lincoln would respond to the secret that had now been relegated to a back burner for so long.

There was enough character and relationship development taking place during this chunk of the book to keep me from being completely turned off by the story. By the time the resolution finally came about, I was underwhelmed, partly because it only took the last 10-15% of the book, partly because it felt a little unrealistic (even though, I guess, it fit in with the story line), and partly because it resulted in a rather abrupt happy-for-now (HFN) ending without some sort of epilogue to push it beyond to the happily-ever-after (HEA). Putting all this together, I wish the second half of the book had been focused almost completely on this big conflict, since I think the author missed the opportunity to turn this story and its emotionally traumatized characters into something truly memorable by doing so.

Despite the fact that Steady Stroke started very strongly for me and was written in a style that was easy to follow and never felt choppy, the direction the author took the plot kept me from enjoying the book as much as I hoped I would. Sure, there was plenty of drama, and it still turned out to be a decent read, but the fact that it focused a good bit on the secondary characters when the key conflict held such potential to become an emotionally powerful story instead of just a good one left me wishing for something more.

The author generously provided me a complimentary copy of Steady Stroke in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Hot Licks (Off Beat #3)
Expected February 2017