Series Review: Stage Dive by Kylie Scott

Hi all my Bookworms!

My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworm.

How are you all?

I thought today rather than reviewing the stage dive books one by one over a series of weeks that I would do it all at once with a series of mini reviews all together.

Before I dive in I do want to say that these books are 18+ and that I don’t recommend them for younger readers.

The four books in the series are:

Lick, Play, Lead and Deep

Author: Kylie Scott

Published between 1st July 2013 and 10th March 2015.

Each book follows a different member of Stage Dive and their lover.

Book 1: Lick

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Waterstones

Blurb:

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.

Ev and Dave make the sweetest couple ever. But it takes a lot of work for them to become that.  The progression from waking up in Vegas to the happily ever after takes work.

One of my favourite things about this couple is that Ev will not let David get away with anything.  She will not put up with anything that he is used to getting away with in his ‘rock’n’roll lifestyle’.  She screams at lawyers who try to put her in her place and puts up with Mal being … well Mal.  She is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man at her side.  And she proves it.  When David get too much, when his ‘lifestyle’ gets too much she turns around and leave him.  No ultimatum, no nothing.  She goes back to her old lifestyle and moves on.

Well, until he turns up in Portland wanting her back.

And that is pretty much their story.

I like the progression of the story and the development of the characters.  Sometimes I think they go from arguing to perfect too fast.  But, hey, relationships can be like that, or so I’m told.

Book 2: Play

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Waterstones

Blurb: Mal Ericson, drummer for the world famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast—at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn’t plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn’t count on finding the one right girl.

Anne Rollins never thought she’d ever meet the rock god who plastered her teenage bedroom walls—especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones. But being paid to play the pretend girlfriend to a wild life-of-the-party drummer couldn’t end well. No matter how hot he is. Or could it?

Mal is one weird character.  We meet him in the first book, another member of Stage Dive, the drummer, and good friend to both Ev and David, the guy is insane.  Hyper-active to the extreme.

And about the least likely person you would expect to fall in love at first sight.

It wasn’t quite that fast for Anna, despite her making all crazy eyes at him, but I expect, though the character may not admit to it he fell in love with her at first sight, not matter what excuses he made with his agreement and all that.

Their relationship follows on through the other books and they always make me laugh.  Particularly the moment when they break the bed.

Mal is sweet and amazing and serious when you need him to be and funny.

If I had to choose one of the guys to go out with, I’m not sure who I would choose, but Mal could be that choice.

I love the story telling with this and the ending to this story is beautiful and heart-wrenching and I just want to pick Mal up and cuddle him and make him feel better.  But now he has Anne for that.

Book 3: Lead

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Waterstones

Blurb: As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it’s booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble.

Lena’s not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

This is one of those where you would never expect the characters to get together.  Never in a month of Sundays.  They are so opposite.

Jimmy is an addict.  He kicked his problem at the end of the first book and the record company decided he needs a ‘babysitter’ as Mal likes to term it.  The official term is ‘sober companion’.  You know like in Elementary.

Except Lena isn’t a sober companion.  She’s an office worker and one that is about to get fired until Mal encourages Jimmy to offer her a job.

Mal seems to like sticking his nose in other people’s business.

Lena and Jimmy don’t like each other.  He tolerates her existence, more than any of his other babysitters, and Lena tries on a daily business not to get fired.

You would never expect them to fall in love.  But some how it happens and they fight it a great deal.

And in the end they live happily ever after.

Not quite.  But you know what I mean.

The progression of the characters is great and I love how they grow with each other.

Book 4: Deep

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads | Waterstones

Blurb: Positive. With two little lines on a pregnancy test, everything in Lizzy Rollins’ ordinary life is about to change forever. And all because of one big mistake in Vegas with Ben Nicholson, the irresistibly sexy bass player for Stage Dive. So what if Ben’s the only man she’s ever met who can make her feel completely safe, cherished, and out of control with desire at the same time? Lizzy knows the gorgeous rock star isn’t looking for anything more permanent than a good time, no matter how much she wishes differently.

Ben knows Lizzy is off limits. Completely and utterly. She’s his best friend’s little sister now, and no matter how hot the chemistry is between them, no matter how sweet and sexy she is, he’s not going to go there. But when Ben is forced to keep the one girl he’s always had a weakness for out of trouble in Sin City, he quickly learns that what happens in Vegas, doesn’t always stay there. Now he and Lizzie are connected in the deepest way possible… but will it lead to a connection of the heart?

I’m so used to series getting better as they go on and the books getting longer, but this one was none of those things and it was kind of a let down.

To begin with the book is about fifty pages shorter than the other books in the series.  I doesn’t sound like a lot but for me it means that a lot of detail and padding to the story is lost.

That doesn’t sound the way I mean it.  Not that the story needs padding out to make it longer, but it needs more so it doesn’t feel like just the bare bones of a story.

There are many times when Scott talks about events that have happened between our two main characters, but rather than being their and giving us the deets, the author just sort of lists them as events that have happened.

But I’m making the book sound like it was all bad.  It wasn’t.  Book four gave me some of the best laugh out loud moments.  A lot of them from Lizzy’s determination to not use swear words while pregnant, the rest of them from her dry whit, sarcasm and sense of humour.  At one point she even has a pet penis.

Ben has always been a distant character in the other stories and I wish we’d seen more of him leading up to this book, but his character is well explored.  The Bearded-Wonder doesn’t remain a mystery for long.

Overall

This is a great series.  One I highly recommend.  All the books leave you with a happy smile on your face with another cute couple out in the world.  I don’t feel like these books are dateable.  As much as they were written between 5-7 years ago, they don’t feel that old.  They aren’t missing anything for not being filled with social media and all that.

The series is summed up well, and I’m not left wanting to know every little detail of the rest of their lives until they die, which I think is important in a romance.  I don’t love ‘and the lived happily ever after’.  Life doesn’t work like that, but I do love ‘and they lived’ because that sums up all the ups and downs that life has to offer, which for me is the way that these characters are left.

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I hope you have liked this way of me doing a review.  I know it is a bit long, but if you want me to do something similar to this again, let me know.  I think this is a fun way of writing a review.

Stay home.  Stay safe.

And, until next time, happy reading.