Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: The Musician and the Monster
AUTHOR: Jenya Keefe
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 287 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 30, 2019
BLURB:
Hatred is a spell only true love can break.
Ángel Cruz is a dedicated session musician, until loyalty to his estranged family forces him to work for Oberon: the feared and hated envoy from the Otherworld. Overnight, Ángel is taken from his life, his friends, his work, and trapped in a hideous mansion in the middle of nowhere, under constant surveillance, and with only the frightening fae for company.
Oberon’s poor understanding of humans combined with Ángel’s resentment and loneliness threaten to cause real harm to the pair. Then a long winter together in the mansion unites them in their love of music. Slowly, Ángel’s anger thaws, and he begins to realize that Oberon feels alone too.
Gradually, these two souls from different worlds form a connection like none other. But hate and prejudice are powerful things, and it’ll take all the magic of their love to stop the wider world from forcing them apart.
REVIEW:
This reminded me a lot of a cross between Beauty and the Beast and a bit of Phantom of the Opera. It’s a lot like Beauty and the Beast more, only it deals with music and not books and it’s not an actual beast, but Fae. It’s not a bad story, but a few things irritated me.
Angel’s parents (and btw there should be a thingy over the A but my keyboard doesn’t do that), were caught in a money fraud scheme thing and basically in order to get out of going to jail or anything like that, they sold out their son. Basically pimped him out to the Fae, Oberon. It was all wrong when Angel had to go to this secluded mansion to stay with Oberon for four years of his life because of what his parents had done. And they didn’t even care. Angel was scared to death when he got there. He heard all these stories of what Fae would do to people and such and he was terrified. The truth was, Oberon was terribly lonely and was dying because he couldn’t touch anyone. Fae need touch and connection. And when Angel started to see that, things changed. They became closer. Started trying to understand each other and bridge that gap. Even became lovers. But there were still too many people who wanted Oberon dead, and they tried again, this time kidnapping Angel along with what they were doing. Angel tried to get back to Oberon but was blocked at every turn from speaking to him and everything. It wasn’t until Angel heard Oberon was dying, that he wasn’t taking crap from people anymore. He had to get to Oberon and hopefully before it was too late.
Loneliness is a horrible thing. It’s even worse when you are a being that has to thrive on touch and people. Being denied that will eventually kill you. But no one seemed to care because to them, Oberon was just a monster. I don’t know who I actually felt more sorry for. Oberon for being treated like a freak or Angel for basically being pimped out by everyone. The sad part is, both of them are lonely but the communication between the worlds of them, made it hard to understand. They eventually worked it out. But it’s like us trying to talk to someone of another country. The language barrier and such.
It’s not a bad book. I felt for both of the MCs. They were treated terribly unfairly by everyone. And for nothing. I was just irritated by the lack of caring on everyone’s part in their concern. See what you think.
RATING: 
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