Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE: Home Grown Talent

SERIES: Creative Types, Book 2

AUTHOR: Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcolm

PUBLISHER: Self-published

LENGTH: 394 pages

RELEASE DATE:  August 25, 2022

BLURB: 

Are you for real?

From the outside, it looks like model and influencer Mason Nash has it all—beauty, fame, and fortune. With his star rapidly rising, and a big contract up for grabs, Mason’s on the verge of hitting the big time.

When an opportunity arises to co-host a gardening slot on daytime TV with his ex’s brother, Owen Hunter, Mason is definitely on-board. And he intends to use every trick in the book to make the show a hit—including agreeing to his ruthless producer’s demand to fake a ‘will-they/won’t-they’ romance with his co-host…

Owen Hunter is a gardener with a huge heart and both feet planted firmly on the well-tilled ground. He’s proud of the life he’s built and has absolutely no desire to be on TV—yet somehow he finds himself agreeing to do the show.

It’s definitely not because he’s interested in Mason Nash. The guy might be beautiful—and yeah, his spoiled brat routine presses all Owen’s buttons in the bedroom—but Owen has no interest in a short-term fling with a fame-hungry model.

As the two men get closer, though, Owen starts to believe there’s more to Mason than his beautiful appearance and carefully-curated online persona—that beneath the glitz and glamour is a sweet, sensitive man longing to be loved.

A man Owen might be falling for. A man who might even feel the same.

But in a world of media spin and half-truths, Owen is dangerously out of his depth. And when a ridiculous scandal explodes online, with Owen at its heart, it starts to look as though everything he thought was real is built on lies—including his budding romance with Mason…

REVIEW: 

With Home Grown Talent, Joanna Chambers and Sally Malcolm provide another enjoyable collaboration in their Creative Types series. These two authors seamlessly blend their writing styles into a unified voice that reads like it’s penned by one author.  It’s a smooth read with two interesting characters in Owen and Mason.  The story’s premise including gardening is superficially different but contains a multitude of tropes at play that can distract from the story itself. Grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract, mutual misimpressions revealed to be false through forced proximity, social media scandal, and a relationship (sort of) built on a lie. It’s a lot of moving pieces in a puzzle that never fully clicked into place for me.  

That’s not to say the story isn’t a good one.  It has some flaws, but Chambers and Malcolm undeniably succeed where it counts most – in their character development of Owen and Mason. They are both likeable, complex, good-hearted men who each grapple with a push/pull dilemma – taking care of others over taking care of themselves – that fuels much of their motivations, reactions, and communication styles. I enjoyed how the authors explore these aspects as Owen and Mason develop as characters and grow closer together.

The social media aspect of this story provides some important, real-world insights about the toxicity of that world and how it can easily leech into the everyday reality of just about anyone. The primary underpinning it creates here is the is-it-fake-or-is-it-real quandary, and the authors tap into that exploration effectively.

The story contains plenty of humor and emotional connection, albeit it’s a bit more serious than book one, Total Creative Control, and the writing is thoughtful and incisive. Oddly, despite all of this, including liking both Owen and Mason, I inexplicably couldn’t get excited about their pairing. I think it must be a “me” thing, because there’s nothing ostensibly wrong with this book, other than the sometimes distracting tropey-ness. It’s a solidly written, thoughtfully plotted story that should provide a more than a satisfactory reading experience for most. I did enjoy the story and its lovely writing, and I unreservedly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of these authors. I personally wish I had felt more engaged with the couple at its center, but I suspect most will not have that issue. 

RATING: 

BUY LINKS: 

Amazon