I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Rock Redemption by Nalini Singh Series: Rock Kiss #3
Series Rating:
Published by TKA Distribution on October 6th, 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Rock Star, Romance
Pages: 349
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
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From New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh comes the next contemporary romance in the Rock Kiss series…
Kit Devigny could have loved rock guitarist Noah St. John. Their friendship burned with the promise of intense passion and searing tenderness…until the night Noah deliberately shattered her heart.
Noah knows he destroyed something precious the night he chose to betray Kit, but he’d rather she hate him than learn his darkest secret. All he has left is his music. It’s his saving grace, but it doesn’t silence the voices that keep him up at night. Chasing oblivion through endless one-night-stands, he earns a few hours’ sleep and his bad boy reputation.
When a media error sees Noah and Kit dubbed the new “it” couple, Kit discovers her chance at the role of a lifetime hinges on riding the media wave. Wanting—needing—to give Kit this, even if he can’t give her everything, Noah agrees to play the adoring boyfriend. Only the illusion is suddenly too real, too painful, too beautiful…and it may be too late for the redemption of Noah St. John.
I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen of Noah and Kit in previous books, so I was really excited to read this one. That said, this left me a little… I don’t want to say that I was disappointed, because I wasn’t, but maybe dissatisfied? I felt like the ending wrapped up Kit’s problem pretty quickly, but left Noah’s still hanging out there. Noah needs therapy, y’all. Real, honest-to-goodness therapy. The love of a good woman and her magic hoo-ha are not enough to fix what’s broken inside him. He needs real help. And I understand his position that it would be difficult to find a therapist he could trust not to sell his story to the media, but he is not the first celebrity who has needed help. There has to be a way to find someone. Thea, who has never met a challenge she couldn’t defeat or been unable to find something one of her clients needed, could certainly help him with this. He wouldn’t have to tell her everything, just “I need help, can you please find someone trustworthy?” would have been enough.
I struggled a bit to like Noah. It’s hard to feel that way about someone who has gone through what he has, but I did. I do not appreciate when someone takes out their frustration, or self-hatred, or other negative emotion by trying their best to destroy the person trying to help. People are not stray puppies to be kicked so they’ll leave you alone. (Also, please don’t kick stray puppies. Just get them to the nearest no-kill shelter.) I really struggle to like someone who does that, because in my experience, that kind of thing doesn’t stop. Ten years down the road, that person loses his or her job, and suddenly their partner is taking the brunt of their anger and frustration. You know what does help with that? Therapy. Lots and lots of therapy. I know I keep harping on it, but I really couldn’t get past everyone who knows what’s going on with Noah just accepting that he’s not going to get help. His celebrity status just isn’t as much of an impediment as it was made out to be.
And Kit. I certainly sympathized with her. She had loved Noah for so long, and for her he was so mentally wrapped up with her own success and her own life. He and his band mates were there for her before she got so famous, and they were her only real friends for a while after she got famous. To lose Noah would be to lose all of them, and to lose the last people in her life who really knew her as a person from both halves of her life. That said, it’s hard to watch someone take so much abuse and just keep coming back for more.
This book was the least romance-heavy book I’ve read by Nalini Singh. Certainly in this series. I’ve only made it through the first 5 Psy/Changeling books so far, and none of the Guild Hunters, so I’m hardly an expert on all things Nalini. But Kit and Noah are focused on putting their friendship back together, and leaving romance out of it until about 80% of the way through the book. They don’t even kiss before that point. This book was a slow burn. Slooooowwww burn. I enjoyed it for a while, and these characters were breaking my heart, but after a while it was hard to accept Kit constantly coming back to Noah even after he consistently treated her so badly. I thought this was a good fit for their characters and for this series, but I don’t think it’s for everyone.
About Nalini Singh
Nalini was born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand. She also spent three years living and working in Japan, during which time she took the chance to travel around Asia. She’s back in New Zealand now, but she’s always plotting new trips. If you’d like to see some of her travel snapshots, have a look at the Travel Diary page (updated frequently).
So far, she’s worked as a lawyer, a librarian, a candy factory general hand, a bank temp and an English teacher and not necessarily in that order. Some might call that inconsistency but Nalini call it grist for the writer’s mill.
She’s been writing as long as she can remember and all of her stories always held a thread of romance (even when she was writing about a prince who could shoot lasers out of his eyes). She loves creating unique characters, love giving them happy endings and she even loves the voices in my head. There’s no other job she would rather be doing.
