Ally Nightingale has been a Rock Chick for years, one of a posse of attractive, intelligent young women who lead exciting lives and get romantically involved with gorgeous alpha males collectively labeled “The Hot Bunch”.
Ally herself has been dodging a serious relationship, though, since she believes that Ren Zano, her casual but extremely talented lover, is in love with someone else. But she’s firmly focused on her goal of becoming a private investigator, over the objections of pretty much every male in her life. Can she convince them that she knows what she’s doing? Will Ren ever convince her to get serious? And what will happen when everyone finds out that the Rock Chicks’ love stories – including Ally’s – are being published as romance novels?
This is a high-energy story told in Ally’s own exuberant and vigorous style. None of the characters in the book lack personality, but Ally overflows with it. The romance is sexy and intense, and though the conflicts there are worked through relatively early in the book, Ally’s other adventures mostly manage to keep the story from drifting into domestic dullness. The book is enlivened by the author’s mischievous, bawdy, and sometimes even self-referential sense of humor, and the reader will be kept turning pages just to see what chaos is about to erupt.
Sometimes the book’s high-energy tone can get a bit wearing, and Ally occasionally comes across as both irritatingly brash and a bit too idealized, mastering everything she tries almost casually. Some of the characters occasionally fall prey to over-stereotyping (gay male wedding planners, Sicilian-American tough guys with an Uncle Vito in the crime business, big-haired women who call everyone “sugar”, etc.), but at least the stereotypes are played with in an entertaining fashion. The plotline leaps about between stories a bit confusingly, and the meta-plot concerning the publication of the novels themselves – in this case, while the story is still going on – just gets weird. Occasional grammar and punctuation issues suggest the need for a good and thorough edit, too.
If you’re up for a lively, sexy, funny romp, and don’t mind downing a few double espressos in order to keep up with the main characters, you might enjoy this book.
Reviewed for IndieReader by Catherine Langrehr