Image and blurb from Goodreads
Title: Solo
(Symphony Hall Series #1)
(Symphony Hall Series #1)
Author: Lauren E. Rico
Release Date: May 8th, 2017
Age Category/ Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Entangled (Embrace)
When graduate student Katherine Brenner walked into my class, I couldn’t stand her -- all perfect skin and big, blue eyes -- just like the woman who broke my heart.
If it wasn’t for that blizzard, if her car hadn’t broken down outside my house, if she hadn’t looked amazing by the firelight, I never would have kissed her. No matter how hard I try, every excuse I make not to see her comes up flat.
I can’t stop thinking of her lips. Or the way her curves fit perfectly in my hands. There’s a million reasons why this won’t work. I’m her professor. It’s against university policy.
And if this gets out, I could lose everything.
Buy Links: Amazon
3 “Music & Doppelgangers” Stars
ARC via NetGalley.
Thank you, Entangled (Embrace)!
I know this was published by Embrace and not Brazen, but I was still
hoping for a little more heat in this one. The story of a grad student and
her hot professor ended up being a little less hot than I would've liked it to
be.
Solo is a story heavily focused on music, so if you're into that, you'll
probably enjoy the atmosphere here. It takes place in a university music
department and it follows music professor Drew and music graduate student
Katherine--two people who hate each other.
Well, to be fair, Katherine has bigger things to worry
about than hating Drew. He's tougher on her than on any other student in his
class, but he's just one of her problems. Katherine also has to deal with the inconvenience
of being the daughter of a Senator who's thinking of running for President;
malicious journalists who never even learned what ethics mean; and the fact
that she's so broke she doesn't have money to buy a new coat for the ruthless
winter coming. Bottom line, Katherine makes it easy to relate to her and feel
for her.
She has no support system—her father has practically kicked her out
because she didn’t want to follow a “traditional” path and chose music over
letting him mold her. She doesn’t have any friends, because she’s afraid people
only want to be near her to get information on her father. She’s practically alone,
but she doesn’t stop living. She goes to classes (even when she’s late), she
works hard and she tries to follow her dreams. So, yeah, she doesn’t deserve
how poorly Drew treats her.
And here’s where the weird part comes in… I love, LOVE the “enemies to
lovers” trope, and I was truly interested in the forbidden romance aspect of
this, but unfortunately I couldn’t connect with how these two elements were
treated here.
Like I said, Katherine already had too much going on in her life. She
didn’t need Drew treating her the way he did for no logical reason. Sure, there’s
a reason he doesn’t like her, but it wasn’t strong enough to justify his
actions, in my opinion.
So I ended up having problems with Drew, which meant I ended up having
problems with the romance in itself.
Drew simply didn’t win me over. I felt sorry for what happened in his
past and I understood he dilemma once he started developing feelings for
Katherine, but I still didn’t love him. I still had problems with the way he
treated Katherine at first and especially with his reaction toward the end. I
didn’t think it was believable and, worse yet, made him look good. He turned on
Katherine way too quickly without any logical reason and he didn’t do anything
big enough to earn her forgiveness.
The chemistry between those two also lacked something. Maybe I needed
more awareness in the beginning—something more than Drew’s hatred for Katherine
or Katherine’s annoyance at how he treated her. I needed there to be something
showing me that their animosity was a way for both of them to ignore their real
attraction. But that wasn’t how it felt at all. So when they started falling
for each other, it felt a little too fast.
Having said that, I liked seeing Katherine happy after they started
spending some quality time together. And because I liked Katherine, her being
happy made me happy, too.
I also liked the music theme. It felt different and original because of
the academic angle, and I had the feeling the author knew what she was talking
about. I wonder if she has music background or if he did her research. Either
way, it worked well.
Overall, I enjoyed getting to know Katherine and following a small part
of her life. I wish I had liked Drew, too, but he didn’t win me over.
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