Jace

I absolutely adored this deeply emotional, tender, romantic love story! Jace is The Next Big Thing in country music, a newcomer with a bright future who has been snatched up by the reigning King family, the father, a legendary solo artist, and his three adult children, whose trio act is consistently at the top of the charts. He is paired with one of the sisters, Krystal, to sing a duet of a song she wrote. This begins his association with the family who can make or break his career, and he unwittingly gets a glimpse behind the curtain of the inner workings of this perfect-in-public family. The characterizations in this story are top-notch. Krystal's personality fairly leaps off the page right from the start, and Jace is everything a girl could ask for. It's a Tim and Faith style relationship that is solid from the start, even if one of them has a few doubts. The author's unique writing style perfectly captures the emotions and complicated thoughts of both main characters through the third-person omniscient POV. Krystal's inner dialogue is portrayed in a delightfully quirky way to show her resisting her attraction to Jace. The way she comes to rely on him as her rock, her foundation, her shelter in the coming storm, solidified their relationship in a way that words never could. It's very compelling, easy to read escapism that completely consumed me and required more than a few tissues towards the end. There's plenty of "kitchen counseling" and southern charm throughout this immersive look at the country music industry. I loved every bit of it, and am looking forward to future books in this series. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.