'It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time' by Kylie Scott

From the BLURB:

Returning home for her father’s wedding was never going to be easy for Adele. If being sent away at eighteen hadn’t been bad enough, the mess she left behind when she made a pass at her dad’s business partner sure was.

Fifteen years older than her, Pete had been her crush for as long as she could remember. But she’d misread the situation—confusing friendliness for undying love. Awkward. Add her father to the misunderstanding, and Pete had been left with a broken nose and a business on the edge of ruin. The man had to be just as glad as everyone else when she left town.

Seven years on, things are different. Adele is no longer a kid, but a fully grown adult more than capable of getting through the wedding and being polite. But all it takes is seeing him again to bring back all those old feelings.

Sometimes first loves are the truest.

‘It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time’ is the new contemporary stand-alone romance by Australian author Kylie Scott.

Ok. So. Remembering that one’s romantic trope preference should never be shamed – no matter how niche! (hey, if The Shape of Water can win an Oscar we can all start respecting individual romance hot-spots, no matter how fishy) I am fully willing to confess that I love and actively seek out May-December relationship stories, in which there's a big age gap between the partners. Specifically, I like older-male and younger-female romances of this trope.

I don’t know why. Mine is not to question, but to read and swoon. But I definitely think that if I were to interrogate, it probably has links back to how much paranormal romance ushered me into the romance genre overall – Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight was really the first romance series I fell head-over-heels for, and it led me to Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse: Southern Vampire and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series – all of which feature supernatural immortal or very much older heroes, falling for human (regularly-aged) women. I mean; Edward Cullen looks 17-years-old but is actually 107-years-old. And if we go one further, I guess the archetype for this trope is a little ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which is possibly my favourite Disney movie of all time (animated, not Emma Watson warbling)... and I guess if we're drawing parallels between men becoming grumpier, hairier, reclusive beasts as they age - then the tropes line up? Kinda?

In any case; May-December romances are my jam, and I’ve found some really great ones – like in all-time favourite historical-romance, The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn which features a heroine in love with her best friend’s older brother, whom she has loved for most of her young life. I have also found some questionable stories, that I have still loved because I CAN’T HELP IT – like; The Surprise of his Life by Karen Keast, which is about a young woman in love with her father’s best friend and business partner, she confesses her adoration and is surprised to find it reciprocated. 

That last one is actually why I had an inkling that Kylie Scott’s latest stand-alone, May-December romance about a young woman who has been in love with her father’s employee-turned-friend-now-business-partner would be right up my alley. And I was not disappointed.

Adele (character named for one of my best friends, true story!) would visit her father in Queensland for six weeks of every year as a teen, since her parents’ divorce. Her father’s employee from the building business he runs was Pete, who’d hang out with young Adele – at first under the guise of scoring points and keeping barriers between him and the women he was casually dating (a kind of; ‘look, I’m such a nice guy minding the boss’ daughter, but also that means we shouldn’t do anything in front of her and OH, look at the time – isn’t it past when I should be ghosting you?’ type thing). But Pete and Adele ended up having a very buddy friendship, which inadvertently (on Pete’s behalf) led to Adele having a HUGE crush on him and telling him in the worst way possible at her 18^th birthday party.

Fast-forward seven years and 25-year-old Adele is back in town for the first time since that terrible night, for her father’s wedding. She is begrudgingly staying with Pete on a purely platonic level because her father’s house is in full wedding-prep and storage mode … but old feelings resurface, and now that she’s of an age Pete is clearly in the hot-seat with admitting that he and Adele might have something.

I loved this book so much. I was 1000% right that it would be up my alley – and then some. This is Kylie Scott at her hottest, steamiest best – and it’s always a good sign when I finish a book, wishing there was another 100 or so pages. And hey, *maybe* this story could lend itself to a sequel? I’d definitely be interested to see what happened in the second-half of this evolving relationship, that’s for sure …

I maybe have a little qualm that it’s never precisely explained why Pete hung out with Adele so much as a teen, that they really did become best friends. It’s sort of explained as I mentioned, that he was using her to score points with the women he was seeing, but also as a barrier against anything more serious happening with them (he’d kind of take Adele on the ‘last dates’ with these women, so that it would remain purely platonic and hands-off so as to ease them into his dumping them).

I was waiting – horribly – for a moment when Pete admitted to 25-year-old Adele that he had totally fallen for her at age 18 (or – ick! – her17-year-old self back, in the day) but I shouldn’t have worried. This is Kylie Scott and she knows her shit around consent, and hot consent especially – not to mention power dynamics in romantic relationships. This moment NEVER comes, because Pete truly didn’t feel anything sexual or romantic towards Adele when she was a teenager. This part of their relationship totally evolves in the here and now, when she is of-age and has agency and you can feel the power dynamic has balanced between them. AMEN!

This book was hot, hot, hot and I loved every second of it. Brava, Kylie Scott – you have reinforced why this trope works for me, and why I still actively seek it out!

5/5

'Twist' Dive Bar #2 by Kylie Scott

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

When his younger brother loses interest in online dating, hot, bearded, bartender extraordinaire, Joe Collins, only intends to log into his account and shut it down. Until he reads about her.

Alex Parks is funny, friendly, and pretty much everything he's been looking for in a woman. And in no time at all they're emailing up a storm, telling each other their deepest darkest secrets ... apart from the one that really matters.

When it comes to love, serving it straight up works better than with a twist.

‘Twist’ is the second book in Australian romance author Kylie Scott’s ‘Dive Bar’ series, following on from 2016’s ‘Dirty’!

So, I really fucking love Kylie Scott.

Pardon my language – but it’s true and requires force to properly communicate my affections.

Because I really do fucking love Kylie Scott!

She has become one of my go-to, insta-buy romance authors and – without fail – whenever I’m in a reading rut, I can rely on one of her books to pull me out. That’s what ‘Twist’ was for me – not only the next book in a series I was already invested in (not least because I was severely in love with the originalseries that ‘Dive Bar’ is a kinda spin-off from) but it’s a book that pulled me out of a reading slump, partly induced by the God-awful world events and politics we’ve been lambasted with since … oh – about January 20^th of this year?

‘Twist’ is about a Seattleite graphic designer called Alex, who has met her match on an online dating site. She’s been chatting with an Idahoan man called Eric Collins for six months now, and getting more and more attached … finally her friends convince her to jump on a plane to Idaho and finally meet him!  Except – she hasn’t been chatting to Eric all this time. In fact, Eric – owner of a Dive Bar in Coeur d’Alene – has no idea who Alex is.

It turns out, Alex has really been chatting to Eric’s brother Joe. He’s the one she’s been sharing her deepest secrets and wants with, unbeknownst to her. But Joe didn’t mean to deceive – it’s just that Eric started his profile and then (as usually happens) abandoned the project not long after, leaving Joe to clean up his mess and cut ties … except then he found Alex, and started chatting to her – and falling for her.

I love this kind of storyline – anything that has a little bit of an epistolary element to it (it’s partly why one of my fave Lisa Kleypas historical’s is ‘Lovein the Afternoon’) and I particularly like this online dating element, which I’m really surprised I haven’t come across in a romance before! (though to be fair, I don’t think I would have sought one out, but now Kylie’s ‘Twist’ has got me looking around for more of this ilk!) I especially love that Alex is a woman who doesn’t have a lot of confidence, especially when it comes to dating … and I kinda loved that when we first meet her, it’s at this very relatable juncture where she’s just been humiliated and hurt by Joe’s (however unintentional!) deception. It’s such an interesting place to start two characters from, with this real perceived “power” imbalance – and it was wonderful to see how they both reacted to this most unusual of situations.

But what I think made this a truly enjoyable – and downright HOT! – romance read and reprieve for me, was Kylie’s usual magic with men, women and relationships … Kylie was actually one of the keynotes at the Australian Romance Readers Convention (ARRC) this year, and she made a great point about why she writes female characters who have realistic bodies – women who aren’t models, who have cellulite, big bums, big boobs, flat-chests. She doesn’t write perfect women, because they don’t exist – and it makes her characters so much more real and interesting.

The only prerequisite for a Kylie Scott book (and she said this at ARRC) was; “A heroine who’s standing a little taller by the end, regardless of the guy by her side,” – and I got that message, plus so much more in ‘Twist’;

Because the same as any man, women were entitled to a fuss-free sex life should they so choose. And it didn't make us sluts, or whores, or any of the other nasty, misogynistic, double-standard bullshit that got thrown a woman's way when she didn't fit with the traditional ideals of who and what a female should be.

I just … really fucking loved this book. I loved Joe and Alex. I love the questions and statements about sex and women that Kylie Scott peppered like fist-bumps throughout. I loved how hot this was, but also sweet and funny. And I really, really loved that Kylie Scott pulled me out of a real-world-sucks reading slump with such a downright enjoyable love story of two genuinely lovely and deserving people.

My only complaint is the wait for my next Kylie Scott story hit …

-->

5/5

'Stage Dive' by Kylie Scott, series review

From the ‘Lick’ BLURB:

Waking up in Vegas was never meant to be like this.

Evelyn Thomas’s plans for celebrating her twenty-first birthday in Las Vegas were big. Huge. But she sure as hell never meant to wake up on the bathroom floor with a hangover to rival the black plague, a very attractive half-naked tattooed man, and a diamond on her finger large enough to scare King Kong. Now if she could just remember how it all happened.

One thing is for certain, being married to rock and roll’s favourite son is sure to be a wild ride.

‘Stage Dive’ is the four-book rock and roll (award-winning, bestselling!) romance series from Australian author Kylie Scott.

So, I inhaled these books over the course of one week recently – alternately kicking myself for waiting so long to read them, while being secretly glad that 4^th book ‘Deep’ came out this year and I got to read the series in one shot. And now I’ve been faced with the hard task of writing a series review that’s not just unintelligible happy-reading-grunting sounds of sheer delight … this is my attempt at a cohesive review, though you should know that my face lighting up at the mere mention of the series is kinda all the recommendation you need …

First book ‘Lick’ is about Stage Dive lead guitarist and songwriter David Ferris, and the woman he marries in Vegas on a whim, Evelyn ‘Evie’ Thomas. ‘Play’ is all about hyper drummer Mal Ericson, and his unlikely love interest Anne Rollins. Lead singer Jimmy Ferris’s book is ‘Lead’, all about his relationship with sober companion-turned something more, Lena Morrissey. The series concludes with ‘Deep and unlikely leading man, bassist Ben whose life and that of Anne’s sister Lizzy Rollins is turned completely upside down by each other and the consequences of their one night stand.

“Do you actually state what a pain in the ass I am in these songs?”
“Not those words exactly. No.” He chuckled, his good humour returned. “You don’t want me to lie and say everything’s always fucking unicorns and rainbows, do you?”
“Maybe. Yes. People are going to know these are about me. I have a reputation as a constant delight to protect.”

― Kylie Scott, Lick

I loved every single instalment in this series, which is about rock and roll band Stage Dive who have already hit it big and are maybe facing some inner band conflict, when these various women enter their lives … I really appreciated that while every book is a contained love story for each band member, there’s an over-arching theme of the band’s shifting dynamics which are in need of an overhaul.

David kicks off the series with his Vegas-wedding, and when Evie is thrown into his high-profile world she kind of stumbles into a hornets nest within the band too… David and lead singer Jimmy are brothers who have family secrets they’re trying to keep a lid on, and are also attempting to forget the woman who came between them and nearly fractured the band. Ben’s family are also tangled up in David and Jimmy’s uneasy relationship in the wake of a ruined romance, while tragedy striking Mal’s family impacts on the band in a huge way. It seems obvious that a series about a band should have them as a sort of lodestone throughout that series, but I’ve read my fair share of rock and roll romances and I can tell you that some authors struggle with hinging the entire series on the core group … Kylie Scott has no such struggle, and does this rather masterfully. So much so that by the fourth book ‘Deep’ they really did feel like a family I was quite sad to leave by the last page.

I also loved these books, of course, for the romances. I do have my favourites – David and Ben’s books ‘Lick’ and ‘Deep’ – but I adored every instalment. I really loved how challenging all the heroines were, and that while the pressure of the fame-game was explored throughout, Scott paid more service to deeper issues within everyone’s psyche, the women especially. And I found real enjoyment in mapping how each new member to the Stage Dive family shifted the dynamics ever so slightly, which was beautifully summarised in Ben’s book ‘Deep’ when he’s the ‘last man standing’ and both terrified/craving the stability and love all the other men have found.

With all the skill and speed of a seasoned male stripper, Mal turned on his heel. “And you, young lady! You are grounded until further notice.”
“I’m grounded?”
“Babe.” Anne winced. “That’s not going to fly.”
“And you are never to talk to Ben again. He is clearly a very bad influence on you.” The drummer continued, oblivious, sneering at his former friend. “Is that understood, Elizabeth?”
Lauren snickered.
“Yeah. Okay,” I said.
“Good.”
“Get out,” I said.

 ― Kylie Scott, Deep

Kylie Scott can also write the hell outta sexual tension and ― *ahem* ― climactic scenes. She’s just a thoroughly enjoyable author to go on this ride with, and I’m over-the-moon at the prospect of her new series (a character for which, appeared in ‘Deep’ called Vaughan). ‘Dive Bar’ is going to be her new series coming in 2016, and it sounds like it’s going to act as an intriguing mirror-series to ‘Stage Dive’, about musicians who haven’t made the big-time and are instead slinging drinks behind a bar. I can’t wait to get stuck in to that series, because I think the same way Scott brilliantly explored the pressure of fame and excess, she’ll do seriously intriguing justice to character who are dealing with the fallout of “failure” and how they handle having to adjust their dreams (or not?). Either way – bring it on! Kylie Scott should be every romance reader’s automatic buy!

5/5