Rock the Heart (Black Falcon #1) by Michelle A. Valentine

So I was quite excited to read Rock The Heart. I had purposely stayed away from the teasers. First off I want to say that “you cannot re-invent the wheel”. There are so many books in this genre out there that yes despite comparisons being inevitable and originality somewhat unreachable, to purely compare would be injustice to this book and its Author.

I love my rock star books, music and its artists are an obsession of mine, so yeah I am a sucker for hot rock star books!

Did Rock the Heart offer me anything new? No not really. However, the male hero did and I have to say that between him and the secondary character Riff (who I loved), the pair of them made this book for me. Noel had such arrogance…but was kind of charming with it.  His broken heart; his struggle to become the famous rock star; his vulnerability, his piercings and tattoos, his unwavering love despite everything…yeah he had me!

 “This next song goes out to the girl who shredded my heart without hesitation back in high school. It’s called Ball Busting Bitch, and Lanie this one’s for you.” – Noel

The plot….Without spoiling it too much, which is really easy here, I will say I enjoyed the build-up and was really excited as it put a bit of a different spin on things to begin with.

Lanie is our heroine and has just graduated out of College, following her dreams of a career in marketing. Lanie does not take risks, she is actually very straight and narrow, knows what she wants and isn’t about to budge for anything in her way to achieve this dream. She is quite a normal kind of girl. She has her insecurities like everyone else yet she is a breath of fresh air in the sense of her strength and her being unfazed and almost uninterested by the whole rock groupie phenomena. She is a woman who broke her first love’s heart, Noel, when he became a hurdle in the road of her dream due to his own. Yeah I can’t say I completely understand Lanie here but then again I am biased because I really liked Noel!

Their story was quite a ride, a hot frustrating one where some of the plot kind of reminded me of two other books I have read already this year. Despite this there were enough differences to avoid too many comparisons and taken for what it was, the journey was enjoyable, sexy and at no point did I consider leaving it.

So, overall, did I enjoy this story? Yes, however something seemed to be missing which could have made it great, details – issues left – touched on but not explored. The transitions from one chapter to the next felt kind of abrupt at times, that I was left to think huh…what happened next? How did we get from there to here and what happened in the mean-time? Also, at times the editing was below par and spell check had clearly altered words.  This may sound harsh, I know, but what I am trying to say is that there was a great story here that came across as just good because of this. I do want to say though that I absolutely LOVE the cover. It completely makes a cover snob like me happy!!

3.5 Stars – Reviewed by Gitte

Book #2 Rock My Bed is due for release in 2013