Reviewed by Sadonna
TITLE: Overture
SERIES: Broadway or Bust
AUTHOR: Tere Michaels
PUBLISHER: The Writer Garage
LENGTH: 133 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 7, 2025
BLURB:
Luca Vocci has discovered “Detour,” an unproduced musical, forgotten in the Cohen Library. Now he needs to get the rights. However, that isn’t going to be easy, because a story of love and betrayal stands in his way.
Once upon a time
Finn Novis is an actor who loves the spotlight.
Theo Krebble is a writer trying to be invisible.
Opposites attract.
They fall in love.
Write a musical.
Plan for the future.
Until everything goes terribly wrong…
REVIEW:
Note: This is the second book in this series and requires previous reading to set up the story. It should also be noted that this installment ends with a pretty big cliffhanger. The next book will, Detours, will give us some resolution, one way or another 😉
Just after the pre-holiday snowstorm of the previous books, Snowmageddon, our intrepid Luca Vocci reached out the the man who can maybe get him in touch with the writers of the original material, the musical Detour, that he and the kids visited during their unplanned lockdown at the Cohen’s home. Luca is convinced that there are good bones in this show. Sure it needs some work, but he’s energized. Bitty and June are encouraging and so he reaches out the lawyer representing the writers.
Harvey Burke is surprised. He was friends with Theo Krebble’s family and looked out for Theo after his parents death at the behest of his grandparents. But he knows the history of this partnership and he’s not sure that Theo is interested in revisiting this college project. More than that though, Finn Novis has long been out of that life and Theo’s and nobody know where he is and if he would be amenable to this show being worked on again.
Theo’s life is not going that great. He’s just gone through a breakup and he isn’t sure he wants to go back down this path. There is a lot of pain there and he’s not seen Finn since he up and disappeared a decade before after a huge blowup. Does he want to really do this – follow his dream despite having a comfortable life as a teacher at a private school? Does he want to have to revisit the Finn years? Does he want to work on this thing that he put a lot of time into? Hmmmm. He’s not sure.
Luca is convincing and Theo and Harvey give him an ok. Then they’ve got to get Finn’s sign-0ff. Theo would really like to work on this but he doesn’t want to have to face Finn. Until it becomes clear he will have to in order to move on.
I really loved this story. We get the entire genesis of this play. Theo and Finn were opposites in so many ways. Finn really let Theo down and just walked away. Finn was done being walked on. He did have his family to support him. I loved his extended family – and especially Marco and Ginger. I wasn’t aware it would be a cliffhanger and hopefully we won’t have to wait long for the conclusion but I for one am dying to see how this turns out! There is plenty of humor and snark here as well as some tender moments and some pathos – particularly around Theo. We don’t have as good of a sense of Finn since he takes a powder halfway through this book, but I’m guessing all will be revealed in the next book 🙂 I am excited for the conclusion to this story! Recommended.
RATING: 
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