Canadian-born author, Kacey Hammell is a self-proclaimed book-a-holic, who began reading romances at a young age and became easily addicted. As a Mom of three, Kacey has made certain that each of her children know the value of the written word and the adventures they could escape on by becoming book-a-holics in their own right.
A decade ago, while working for multiple review sites, Kacey quickly discovered that she was developing the writing bug. Thanks to the encouragement of her own beloved hero husband, she decided to try her hand at writing.
With a love of contemporary settings, modern day romances and the happily ever after, as well as the excitement of suspense, Kacey creates stories in genres she’s familiar with and that she loves most. She also loves vampires who nibble the necks of the heroines, ghosts who can't leave a loved one, shape-shifters who are sexier than hell and the thought of her very own werewolf or were-cat to tame makes her tremble!
Readers can contact Kacey at kaceyhammell@gmail.com
Readers can learn more about Kacey’s books and contact her via:
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Release Date: November 1, 2011
Series: #1 Follow the Music
Buying Links:
Book Blurb:
Music was their only dream & passion...
Until they found one another...
For years, Mikayla Gallan has dreamed of providing a better life for her younger brother, Matthew, and herself. Coming from a family of musicians, Mikayla and Matthew have dreams of someday making it big. But Mikayla's first priority is always ensuring Matthew's future. When Houdini Records comes knocking on her door, offering her everything she's ever wanted, Mikayla's scared to grab onto their offer.
Sinclair "Sin" Devlin, part-owner of Houdini Records has loved and lost and has no intentions of ever going down that path again. He's determined to put his company back on the map and is willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. Meeting Mikayla Gallan, hearing her sultry and passionate voice on stage, Sin believes he has found the only woman that could save the company. He's even more shocked to realize that perhaps she's also the only woman to save him from himself.
My Thoughts:
OK, most of you know I am picky about technical matters in stories - grammar, spelling, missed words, etc. I'm generally okay with a few, as it's nearly impossible to catch every single one. But, the more that accumulate, the harder it is, for me anyway, to follow the story. I'm trying to translate it into legible English, mentally copy edit, or both. This story had me doing both:
mikayla shivered as he withdrew his hand from underneath her move and caress her ribs and stomach.
Note the lack of capitalization on the name "mikayla"; that occurs all throughout the story though her last name is capitalized as are some other names. Some names are capitalized, some are not. I couldn't decide if it was a style thing or poor proofing. It didn't help that mikayla's last name is spelled two different ways in the story. There were numerous sentences with missed words, odd capitalizations, wrong punctuation or lack of punctuation, etc. It made the story difficult to read. Correction: The funky capitalization seems to be the result of converting the PDF to kindle format. The other issues though were in both formats
Now, the actual story. I liked the premise, and both of the leads, Sin (though, I'm REALLY tired of authors naming their characters Sin, it's beyond old.) and mikayla. Both are likable, though there was one incident early in the story that had me going WTF? I can buy, usually, love at first sight, and people have sex with each other quickly these days but this, it just didn't fit with what we had been told of the characters up till then (sorry, I know that's vague, I'm trying not to reveal spoilers. Email me if you want to know), and I didn't buy it , nor did I buy the instant connection between them. Their romance happened very quickly and didn't feel believable. Oddly, the aspect of the romance that I found most believable occurred in the epilogue, about a year after the main story. There, we see the hesitancies, the doubts, and the ordinary problems that a couple have. The story has an HEA, humor, some steamy sex scenes, and is a quick read, but overall, it just didn't work for me.
I received a PDF for review.
I also hate reading a book when there are grammatical and punctuation errors. It's hard to know what you're reading. It takes too much time to figure out. Thanks for the review. I really wanted to read this book but now I'm not sure.
ReplyDeletee.balinski(at)att(dot)net
Thnx for the review. I will have to look at the doc, see if the caps issue was a formatting problem.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks for the honest review. Ditto that gratuitous errors will probably have me putting the book back on the shelf. I found one in a piece I'd already published once and man, the guilt I felt was right up there with the time I accidently ran over a turtle on the road (it was me, the mac truck in the other lane, or the amphibian).
ReplyDeleteSmiles!
Lori
That's too bad, Bea --but I respect your honesty when it comes to reviews.
ReplyDelete