Reviewer: Tracy Wanderlust by Roni Loren
Publisher: Penguin, Intermix
Publication Date: July 19th 2016
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Restaurant critic Aubrey Bordelon is never at a loss for words to describe her meals in the fancy restaurants of New Orleans. But after her magazine’s high-profile music reporter falls ill, she finds herself out of her element and in a sea of screaming fans awaiting Wanderlust’s lead singer, Lex Logan. The sound of his voice gives her goosebumps, and the stage presence of the hard-bodied rock star takes her breath away. So when he pulls her onstage for a sexy stunt, she knows she’s in real trouble.
Lex doesn’t want to pretend that the sparks on stage between him and Aubrey never happened, but it certainly makes the fact that she’s writing a story on his band all the more dangerous. The last thing he needs is some nosy reporter revealing their problems to the world. But the sexy Southern belle doesn’t give up easily, and soon he’s wondering if the best way to chase her off the story is to coax her into his bed…
Aubrey is a bit uncomfortable with her new assignment. She’s to spend a week with the band Wanderlust and write a story about it for the magazine she works for. Unfortunately, that’s not really her thing as she’s a restaurant critic. She may not be thrilled with the assignment but when she’s in the concert the lead singer of Wanderlust captures her attention. When she’s pulled up on stage so that Lex Logan, lead singer, can do a body shot off of her, Aubrey knows she shouldn’t but she can’t help herself.
Meeting Lex back stage after the concert isn’t what Lex thought it would be. He thought he was going to get to meet the hot brunette he brought up on stage but he gets the buttoned-up reporter instead. He doesn’t want to do the interview as he only agreed to it because his friend Nick works for the magazine. Though Nick has appendicitis Lex still has to go through with the interview. He decides that if he sleeps with Aubrey (which would be absolutely no hardship) then he can get her off the story as he could claim conflict of interest, etc. Lex doesn’t count on getting to know Aubrey and getting to like her more and more.
Aubrey tries to fight Lex and the attraction she feels for him but he turns out to be a much better person than she thought at first. She finds herself falling in love with him but she knows nothing can come of it because he’ll be leaving town soon and Aubrey will be left alone to deal with her inner demons.
This was another great story from Roni Loren. When I first read her novella, Nice Girls Don’t Ride, I knew she was someone I needed to read more of in the future. The characters in Loren’s books are just so normal. They deal with normal problems in their lives but they deal with them well. Loren always drags me into a book and I don’t want to put it down until I’m done.
In this story I wasn’t sure if I liked Lex at first because he seemed like a bit of an ass (that’s what Aubrey thought as well) but as I read on I saw that he was a much nicer person. Lex got close to Aubrey pretty quickly and discovered that she’d been living a pretty hard life for the past few years. He got to see another side to Aubrey when he was with her and he realized that that was the real Aubrey, not the stick in the mud she tried to be. Lex worked to get Aubrey to break out of her stiff mold but her parents and her past wouldn’t let her do that. He was really a nice guy and I loved how he tried so hard for her.
Aubrey had so many problems she was dealing with. Her dad was running for mayor of New Orleans and wanted Aubrey to be the perfect daughter. Unfortunately, she wasn’t and they didn’t let her forget it. She had been responsible for the death of her sister and it wasn’t bad enough that it ate her up inside every day, her parents had to look at her and make her feel worse. I truly wanted to hurt her parents in many ways. Asses. Aubrey, once she let herself relax was a girl who loved life and Lex helped her see that she needed to live it instead of doing what everyone else wanted her to do. Their relationship had its issues at first but in the end they were more than good and they made me smile with how it all ended.
Overall a really great story, a good romance and one I definitely recommend. If you haven’t read any books by Roni Loren I would suggest you do so – I don’t think you’ll be sorry.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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