Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Batteries Not Included
AUTHOR: J.L. Merrow
PUBLISHER: JMS Books
LENGTH: 30 pages
BLURB:
How would you react if you woke up one morning to find you were in bed with your favorite rock star? More to the point: how would the rock star react?
Animal rescue worker Sam is content to dream of rock sensation Cain Shepney. Trouble is, his meddling mother Lillith thinks he deserves to have all his dreams come true — and she isn’t above performing a little magic to achieve her ends! Sam’s shocked to wake up one morning to find himself actually in bed with his celebrity crush — but that’s nothing to how Cain feels about it! Suddenly Sam’s got to deal with an irate, naked, and very distracting rock star in his bed.
Cain has it all — he’s good-looking, famous, and adored by millions. But his life takes a turn for the surreal when he wakes up in bed with Sam. Expecting everyone to be worried sick by his disappearance, Cain’s horrified to find his manager — and even his mum — insisting he’s an imposter, and the real Cain Shepney is right where he belongs.
Sam just wants to help, but with Cain convinced he’s a crazed, celebrity-kidnapping stalker, Sam’s got his work cut out for him. Can he get the object of his affections to trust him long enough to find out just what the hell’s going on?
REVIEW:
Sam is used to being suspicious of any gifts given to him by his mother Lillith, and for good reason. Still…a plastic doll of his favorite rock star, Cain Shepney, is relatively harmless. And if it is embarrassing for a grown man to be given a doll by his mother, well it is still better than being gifted sex toys (been there, done that…please never ever go there again!). When he wakes up the next day, and the real Cain is freaking out in his bedroom, Sam doesn’t have to look far for a guilty party to this mess. Too bad he is having problems convincing Cain that Sam had nothing to do with it, or that he is not in fact a crazy stalker/kidnapper.
I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t cotton onto the truth a lot sooner than I did. But I guess I was too busy enjoying this short story. It was funny and entertaining, and pretty much everything I’ve come to expect from J.L. Merrow. Cain’s reactions to waking up next to a complete stranger were hilarious, and having Sam trying to reason with him went about as well as you would expect it to go.
I wish we had more time to go into the consequences of the actions taken and the truths revealed in this book. It was a cool twist, and I’d have loved to see how both Cain and Sam handle what they learned. Though I can’t help but think the largest lesson they came away with was when it comes to wishes, go big or go home. 😉
Entertaining, if rather short. Very good at filling the minutes you have when you are waiting for the dentist to finally get around to seeing you (not that I have a lot of experience in waiting in the wasteland of my dentist’s office, or anything).
RATING: 
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