Guest Review: You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly

Reviewer: Tracy
You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: January 6th 2015
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books

The first irresistible novel in a hot new series about a rock star on his way up—and the woman he wants to take all the way…
Emmie Valencia has what it takes to be the music industry’s hottest band manager. She just needs to prove it. Determined to discover a killer new band, Emmie is ready to make her move. First stop: Austin, Texas.

As a sizzling-hot lead singer, Slater Vaughn has no trouble raising heart rates—but his band’s been flat-lining for years. When Emmie, his bandmate’s sister, crashes with them in exchange for some free management, her industry know-how lands them a spot in the biggest music festival in Texas. But it isn’t just her business acumen that catches Slater’s attention. Emmie is sexy and warm, and—for the first time in his life—he wants more.

But as irresistible as Slater is, Emmie is done with musicians. In her experience, a man can’t be a rock star and someone to trust with your heart—but Slater is determined to show her he’s both.

Tracy’s review of You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly

Emmie has been a personal assistant to the best A&R guy in the recording industry for eight years. She wants desperately to get a promotion and be an A&R person herself. The problem is that her boss won’t promote her. She finally decides to take matters into her own hands so she takes a 6 week leave of absence to try to discover her own band. She feels if she can just discover ONE band that her boss will sign then she’ll get her promotion.

Emmie has other things she wants to take care of while she’s on leave. She was in a relationship with a band member for three years. She found him cheating and then found out he’d been cheating for a long time while on tour. When confronted her ex told her that she wasn’t wild – that she serviced him. What an ass! Emmie has made a list and has decided she will work on being a bit more wild. Things like skinny dipping and sleeping naked. She heads to Texas to see her brother, Derek, and to check out bands. While there she helps Derek’s band, Snatch, in getting organized and getting them ready to be discovered. The lead singer of the band, Slater, is someone that Emmie can’t seem to get off her mind. He’s amazingly hot but they also share an amazing connection. Slater, however, is a man whore as far as Emmie knows and on top of that she’s sworn not to get involved with any more musicians.

Slater – whose real name is Jonny – doesn’t quite know what to make of Emmie when he first meets her but he soon finds himself thinking about her constantly. He also feels the connection that they have but he knows that she’s been hurt by another musician and there’s the fact that she’s Derek’s sister and he’s been warned away. They soon can’t stay away from each other but Emmie is leery of letting everyone know of their change in relationship and he hates that because he wants to shout it from the rooftops that she’s his girl.

Emmie manages to get Snatch booked at a local music festival AND get them to open for a music star by the name of Piper Lee. Once that happens Jonny and Emmie only have 11 days together before he goes on tour with Piper. Jonny tries to make Emmie believe that their relationship will endure the tour but Emmie is positive that Jonny will need to move on and be with other women. Then of course there’s Piper who is a barracuda and a manipulative bitch who has her eye on Slater. It’s a tangled web that Emmie’s not sure they can ever get out of.

You Really Got Me is a story that has a great romance in it but one that has relationship issues. These issues are different from your average every day variety as it has Jonny and Emmie dealing with him being gone on tour and all that is involved with him being the talented rock star he is (mainly groupies). I could see how Emmie could doubt Jonny’s feelings for her but she was so mercurial emotionally that it was hard to tell how she would react to some things. She doubted herself because of her ass of an ex but Jonny was forthright enough with his feelings for her that she should have seen how much he loved her. He definitely told her enough. Her up and down emotions really started to get on my nerves until she finally believed she was good enough for him – and that was near the end of the book. I was more than frustrated with Emmie the last half of the book.

Jonny was really a good guy who had had a strange childhood. Because of that he was unsure of his talent and that caused him to seek approval from those in the industry. I did love that he was willing to blow off interviews or events that would further his career just so he could be with Emmie. I’m not sure I believe that that would ever happen in RL but it was a good part of the fiction.

Overall I found the book to be a good one. There were many aspects of it that I really loved and then some that I didn’t. That evened things out for me and left me with a very good start to an interesting series.

Rating: 3.75/4 out of 5

This title is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Related Posts