REVIEWED by Jay V.
TITLE: The Deeper You Go
SERIES: Heartbelt Records #1
AUTHOR: Logan Grey
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 227 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2020
BLURB:
Travis Cherry’s record label disowned him in almost every way, shape, and form when he was outed in the media.
The thing that sucked?
He still owed them an entire album. But that didn’t meant he’d make it easy on them.
They were the reason he was there, in that nightclub—the gay nightclub— shaking his ass and making a complete fool of himself.
They were also the reason he met Bailey.
And this is their story.
REVIEW:
Rock star Travis Cherry’s life is beginning to fall apart. A leaked photo with him and another man. Fallout from a label that didn’t support him. A looming habit of getting in trouble partying at clubs and now hoping to get as much press as possible. He needs an escape. Travis arbitrarily picks a town near a place he played a memorable performance. Can he find his way out? Can he accept himself? Will he connect deeply with the son at his bed and breakfast?
This novel, the first book in the series and tied closely to the next books, follows a roller coaster journey of being in the music business, being inadvertently outed, and dealing with those consequences – both internally and externally. Travis is on a journey of self-discovery and Bailey might be the help he needs.
The story is very cute and we get a real sense of a metamorphosis in Travis, and ultimately Bailey, too. They begin to see how they help each other through trying times. Grey’s writing is clean and the story is pleasant. There is quite a cliff hanger at the end but fortunately for all of us, the second book has already just released so there isn’t that long wait to find out what happens next. Heartbelt Records comes into the story in a clever way and leaves itself open to many stories of the artists involved in the label for future books in the series.
The characters are well developed and we get a true sense of both of them, though there’s more to the story on both sides and they try for a more ‘temporary’ relationship at first. Though you might think at first glance this story is very light, but there are a few sections of quite descriptive sex scenes. The more I’ve read MM stories, the more I can gloss over the sex part unless it moves the story forward. This would be my only real criticism of this book, but so much of it is good and the chemistry between the couple is palatable. This isn’t a novel cut in two, the first book takes a nice, long time to develop and there’s a definite arc. You’ll be curious to see what happens next and I’m grateful I was able to move to the next novel immediately because I just needed to find out how their lives progress.
RATING:
BUY LINK: