Perfect Rhythm by JaeMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I received an ARC of this book from Ylva Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
This book stars two women (and yes you see both of their point of views) who have at least two specific things in common that are important to the story: 1) both are from the same small town in Missouri; 2) both are romantically interested in women. There’s also one very important difference, though, that is important to the storyline: one of the women, Holly, is not sexually interested in anyone – she has a separation between her sexual desires (no one) and her romantic desires (women). As opposed to the other lead character, Leontyne, who does not have this separation between sex and romance.
But, with that mentioned up front, let’s dive into the story.
Leontyne Blake, 32 or 33, is a famous musician, a ‘pop star’ as the description puts it. For the past, oh, 14 years she has worked hard at being at the top or near the top of the music scene (in her genre) and has found fame, fortune, and Grammys. As the book opens, Leo, who goes by Jenna Blake professionally, is performing at the last city on her current year long music tour. She barely made it to the end, and really needs a break, a vacation, something. Her manager, though, wants her to immediately start on a new album, become a judge on a music reality show, and then, thereafter, go back on tour. They bicker. It’s kind of a common trope in music related books that the manager is a controlling dick who basically treats his/her ‘talent’ like children. To be fair, there are famous examples in real life of controlling managers (see: Elvis), but it seems to be the only version seen in fiction (at least that I’ve read). Well, as they bicker, and before they come to some conclusion, Leo/Jenna gets a phone call. From her mother. Who she hasn’t seen in five years. The mother informs Leo, tentatively, that Leo needs to come home because her father had a stroke. And so – Leo returns home to a small town in Missouri.
Holly Drummond, 29, is an in-home nurse. Her current patient is a man named Gil, and she has become quite close with him and his wife. Gil is also known, or I should say has been mostly referred to by others during his life, as Dr. Gilbert Blake, or Dr. Blake. Not Gil. Certainly her daughter, Leo, never called him Gil. Yeah, I’m kind of dragging that out – Holly and Leo meet because Leo returns home, and finds Holly in her childhood home, being the nurse.
Holly and Leo meet badly, so to speak, due to a misunderstanding on the part of Holly. In any other book I’d say ‘then they became friends, then they became lovers’, but that’s more complicated here – see . . . oh, I didn’t use the word yet, well the asexual nature of Holly. (Is there sex? Is that a spoiler? I’m not even sure if the inclusion or lack of sex is a spoiler so, to keep things spoiler less as possible -> (view spoiler)
So, that’s the book – two women meet, both have the same type of romantic desires (towards women), both have even dated the same woman (‘dating’ isn’t exactly the right word). Both have even had sex before this book started. One, though, does not have sexual desires, while the other does. So, it is, in theory, a standard celebrity-‘commoner’ romance – with the added twist of one of the characters being asexual.
What else is there to say? Well: I enjoyed the book. Not my favorite book by Jae, but up there.
In terms of ‘words’. Oddly, there were more words, mostly medical in nature, which I didn’t recognize, than there were words related to sexual orientations and ‘stuff of that nature’ that I didn’t recognize. Hmm. Poorly created sentence. There were terms in the book I had to look up, 99% of them were medical words. One was sexual/romance/’stuff’ related: I did not previously know the word ‘queerplatonic’, though I’m fairly certain I’ve seen several books that had that type of relationship in them.
What else, what else . . . yep, that’s what I wanted to say. *nods*
Rating: 4.92
September 6 2017
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