Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Double Takes

SERIES:  Shooting Stars #2

AUTHOR:  Kimber Vale

PUBLISHER:  Liquid Silver Books

LENGTH:  174 pages

BLURB:  

Ah, the life of a rock star. Everyone thinks it’s nothing but sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Not for Giovanni Savale.

For the lead singer of Three Deaf Mice, a band that reached its pinnacle in the late nineties, it’s nothing but an ugly divorce with a custody battle, money trouble, and now the nightmare exposure of starring in a reality television show. When his producer decides to cash in on an infamous interview Gio did years ago, and give the self-confessed bisexual rocker an onscreen boyfriend, things really hit the fan. Gio is certain his sexual experimentation back in his drug-abusing days meant nothing — after all he’s been married for nine years, clean and sober for nearly as long, and he has a son. And Gio is not remotely attracted to Kyrie, the funny, flamboyant actor they choose for his love interest. Of course, Lance Garrett, the mysterious and sexy owner of the local antique shop, Double Takes, is a whole different story. The guy has Gio planning out a future he never imagined. With the threat of losing all custody of his ten-year-old son, ghosts from the past returning for revenge, and the cameras rolling, can Gio keep his head above water and his heart from getting broken?

REVIEW:  

Gio made a bad, no good, absolutely horrible deal, when he agreed to star in a reality show based on him and his band Three Deaf Mice.  But no matter what deals he made with the devil his producer Kevin, he made them for a good reason. The best reason: keeping his vindictive ex-wife from taking full custody of their son, Marco.  For Marco Gio is willing to shovel a whole lot of shit.

Shit like pretending to date the flamboyant Kyrie so that the show’s ratings don’t tank–thereby taking Gio’s much needed paycheck to an early grave (the show can go to hell, as far as Gio is concerned, but evil lawyers must be paid).  And if that wasn’t bad enough, Gio is finding himself untimely attracted to Lance Garrett, the antiques dealer he hired to sell all of his wife’s remaining junk.  So he has a fake boyfriend, a real crush, and annoying camera men on his heels–something is bound to go wrong.  It usually does.

This book started off great. I was pretty much hooked from the get-go, and I have to say Gio is one hell of a character. He was entertaining and self-deprecating, but he also knows what is important in life, and he’ll do whatever the hell he needs to do for his son.  I love that.  Even if reality shows make me want to go on a killing spree.

Take the most annoying humans in the world, shove a camera in their faces for weeks on end, and then cut it so it is all shit and no substance, and bingo! you’ve got a ‘reality’ show–you also have one of the reasons I no longer bother to watch TV.  But the guys in this show were really not that annoying.  Well, Gio and Kyrie were not annoying.  The other two deaf mice were kinda exactly what you picture an aging rockers to be.  And well, I don’t have a great opinion of rockers at the best of times.  I didn’t expect to like Kyrie as much as I did. He was just going to be some annoying twink that the producers threw at Gio, I thought, but he was actually really great. And hopelessly clueless about his ex-brother-in-law.  Adorably clueless.  Kind of hope that we might see more of him in the future.

For the most part I really enjoyed this book, which was unexpected since reality shows and rockers are not my thing. But the characters were really well written, so I found myself really into the story.  Until we get to the climax–which seemed to come way the hell out of left field.  We were almost to the end, and everything is happy and loving and then a car chase and criminals and…just what the hell?  The story went from 0 to 60 in like 8 seconds, and I didn’t feel prepared for it at all.  There were some hints that Lance’s past was not all that cheery, but nothing really that would have led to this.  I just felt more than a little turned around by this.  I’m glad it didn’t go for the obvious climax problems I was sure were going to happen, but some type of lead in to this whole Lance thing would have been good.

And I realize this is totally a ‘me’ thing…but I hate how glorified car chases are.  Like speeding down a road, at high speeds, with no care for anyone else on the road, is a good thing.  I have never understood why people like them.  And that was before I got in an accident, last year. Now I don’t like watching/reading about them because flashbacks of my car ramming into the car in front of me and knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it, are not fun.  I honestly don’t expect authors to flag this kind of thing ahead of time, but still…I hate being hit with it out of the blue.

And that is not even going into the stupidity of a civilian trying to chase a bad guy across town in his car.  It is a dangerous thing to do even when you are trained for it, but it is also illegal, and I’m surprised that Gio didn’t get his ass handed to him by the cops at the end.

Still…overall it was a good story. Lance and Gio together was certainly hot, and I liked most of the characters that populated the background of their story.  And I am certainly going to go back and read the first book in this series, because that whole wedding has me intrigued about these other guys.  For a book dealing with a bunch of subjects I really don’t care for, this story had a lot going for it. And a lot I really enjoyed.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

Liquid Silver

Amazon

ARe