Melody’s Key – Dallas Coryell

Thank you to the author of this book for giving me a copy to read in return for an honest review.

What a fantastic read!

This book follows Tegan, a simple young woman who works in her family business of a hotel/bed & breakfast, despite her dreams of attending university to study Art on her scholarship, family funds hold her back. They live a fairly normal, day to day life, until a well known American singer hires the Lockwood house for a few months of  solitude away from from his fans and media.

Tegan Lockwood doesn’t think much of American heartthrob Mason Keane when she first meets him. He’s snappy, rude and Tegan wants nothing to do with him. However, spending four months under the same roof makes it quite hard for someone to be avoided. Especially when they find out that they share the same love for music and talent for writing songs.

My favourite part about this story was the letters…Tegan had a hidden stash of letters from her grandfather to her grandmother which were exchanged during the war. I absolutely adored every time Tegan would get one out and read one as my heart turned into absolute mush. They were so beautiful! I like how the letter idea was also merged into Tegan and Mason’s story.

The characters were written brilliantly. Mason is written really well. Unlike a few similar characters that I’ve read, Mason isn’t an idiot that gradually turns into a nice guy, aside from being a little grumpy at first meeting, he doesn’t have a personality change at all. He is so lovely and so easy to fall in love with.

I loved Tegan too. I really enjoyed reading the personal battle that she had with herself for developing feelings towards Mason. She had an idea of an egotistical popstar in her head wh had a constant choice of women and just convinced herself that Mason was showing her an interest for the simple sort of getting in her pants, so scolded herself harshly every time she felt attracted to him.

The songs that Coryell wrote for this book were amazing. He’d even recorded them himself and put them on his Youtube channel. For me, this made it so much better. I’ve read a few books where lyrics have been specially written but I am god awful at putting them to music. Plus, these songs are absolutely stunning!!

The ending was really nice. It left you with the yearning for more but wasn’t cruel enough to put us at a cliffhanger.

I think it was a slow starter at first. But literally only for a chapter or two while the scenes were being set and stories were being laid out. As soon as Mason and Tegan started talking I was absolutely hooked on this story.

I’d highly recommend this for young adults who love a good romance, especially the ones like me who would love the celebrity/fan romance. It was really well written and I’m glad and grateful that I got to review it.

Overall Rating
4.5 Stars!! ****

 

Casting Corner

Tegan Lockwood – Bonnie Wright

I didn’t imagine Tegan to be gorgeous, but just naturally pretty. Which I think Bonnie is. If you dressed her up with a ton of makeup and jazzy clothes then you’d ruin her natural, quirky looks. Bonnie’s shown in her famous role of Ginny that she’s capable of playing a strong female character.
I’ve never heard Bonnie sing, but imagined Tegan to have an Ellie Goulding kind of voice, where she has that haunting air to it.

Mason Keane – Nick Jonas

Before I have the angry mob chasing me…I’m not much of a Jonas Brothers fan…I couldn’t actually tell you one of their songs. I’m a huge Nick Jonas fan though since I saw him in a Les Miserables anniversary, playing Marius.
Nick seems like a really nice, down to earth guy and has the kind of voice that I imagined Mason to have, that pop star, over American voice.

The Pool Boy’s Beatitude – DJ Skywert

Thank you to the author of this book for giving me a copy to read in return for an honest review.

The Pool Boy’s Beatitude follows Jack, a drop out science major and  alcoholic who works as a Pool Boy for a living, and has affairs with the majority of his clients. He has no cares for anything, until he bumps into a vixen named Sarah.

This book…I really wanted to like it. D.J.Swykert approached me via my blog to ask for a review and he was the nicest person to talk to. When he gave me the book description I wasn’t really thrilled by the description…Science…all I saw was science. That kind of hid the story line for me.
I haven’t been a fan of science since I was a bottled specced goodie two shoes in primary school. I did great in every class except for science. Usually I’d say no to such a book as I wouldn’t want to give it a bad review based on my lack of interest in the genre and not the story itself. I agreed to read Swykert’s however, thinking it was about time I stretched my genres (and mind) a little since reading a lot of light books recently.

D.J Swkert’s writing is great. It fits in perfectly with the book, very philosophical with short, snappy and witty sentences.
Jack is a character that I loved to hate…he is a raging alcoholic and abuses over the counter drugs. He is completely unfaithful and a bit of a scrounger. Yet he makes the perfect character in this story. I found myself switching in between wanting him to completely fail and wanting him to get his life on track. Same for Sarah, or Delilah, she wasn’t a character I particularly liked as I didn’t get what was nso interesting about Jack when she seemed like a fairly decent person, but I was rooting for the relationship between her and Jack to bloom.

I think my favourite parts of this book were probably Rosemary. One of Jack’s clients and on the side lovers. I loved Rosemary’s scenes because she was just hilarious. She began seeming very desperate and gradually turned into an absolute freak.
The prologue of the book was just brilliant. It made me laugh with the simplicity of it. Absolutely perfect.

This book took me a long time to read. Mainly because it was quite heavy on the science stuff and during a 7am commute when the coffee hasn’t yet kicked in, I’d find myself going and reading something else as I just couldn’t handle it. There were a lot of personal lows for the character in the story too which I just didn’t particularly want to read due to my lack of empathy for that kind of situation. It’s an illness that I don’t really understand and can’t relate to.

I personally wasn’t a huge fan of this book, but that doesn’t reflect on the writing style. If you’re a science/philosophy fan and love a bit of romance then this book would be great for you

Overall Rating:

3.5 Stars

The writing style was great and fits the story’s theme perfectly. There are some parts that are funny in it. It’s just not my kind of book.
I know a few people that I will highly recommend it to though!

Casting Corner

Jack – Shia LeBeouf

I think that Shia pulls off a great drunk character. Even when he’s at that most rugged he still has that charm. That’s how I imagine Jack to be so irresistible with his clients…the LaBeouf charm.

Sarah – Anna Kendrick

Anna has that ‘don’t care’ personality that I imagine from Sarah. In my mind, Sarah is drawn to Jack because he’s a bad boy and she loves the sense of danger. A lot like Kendrick’s personality in a few of her films.