#TBRChallenge 2016: A Little Bit Country

The Book: Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols

The Particulars: Young Adult Contemporary Romance, MTV Books, 2013, In Print

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Back in 2013 I judged a local RWA chapter contest.  My job was to read all the first place winners in the categories and pick the overall winner.  Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols won the YA category and while I really, really liked it - it ultimately was my runner-up to Sea Change by Karen White.  At the chapter meeting where I announced the winner, Victoria Dahl was the guest speaker.  Dahl and Echols are critique partners.  Apparently Dahl went home and told Echols all the nice things I said about her book because shortly thereafter she sent me a nice note and a couple of books (this being one of them) in the mail.

The Review:

I slapped my hands over my ears and yelled, "I would like out of this country song now.  I want out of this country song right now!"

I wasn't sure who I was praying to.  The ghost of Johnny Cash, maybe.  But nothing changed.

Bailey Wright Mayfield grew up traveling the bluegrass circuit with her parents and younger sister, Julie.  Her and Julie were the act - you know, cute kids singing harmonies wearing matching outfits while Bailey rocked out on her fiddle.  But in the past year it's all gone to hell.  A record company has come calling - interested in Julie sans Bailey.  And the record company doesn't want Bailey's existence to get out because it could "screw up" their PR machine.  The parents go along with this and basically tell Bailey to shuttle herself off to the side, which means no social media, no playing music on her own, just sit in the corner and breath quietly.  Bailey handles this as well as you'd expect an 18-year-old girl who has just been told to smile while hacking off her right arm - she rebels.  And when her rebellion goes too far?  She's sent to live with her grandfather while the parents and Julie hit the road to drum up excitement for her forthcoming debut single.

Her granddad feels sorry for her and lands her a job playing her fiddle with cheesy tribute acts at the local mall.  One day she's backing Dolly Parton, the next she's thinking of filing a sexual harassment claim against Elvis.  That's where she meets Sam, who is playing with his father, Johnny Cash.  Sam loves that Bailey has perfect pitch, the way she handles her fiddle, and asks her to join his band.  Joining a band most certainly would set her parents off, who have already threatened to not pay for her college tuition in the fall if she screws up.  But we all know where this going, right?  Of course she plays in Sam's band and that's when things get really complicated.

There's plenty of conflict and drama to go around and it keeps this YA novel humming along.  Bailey is supposed to be staying "low key" so she's not upfront with Sam about who her sister is.  Sam is ambitious, looking at every angle to achieve a music career to the point of using people.  Needless to say the band's drummer, Charlotte, is not terribly pleased to have Bailey arrive on the scene - what with her being one of Sam's many (many...) ex-girlfriends.  There's also bassist, Ace, who looks to keep everyone on an even keel.

There was a lot of good in this story.  I loved (LOVED!) the world-building, the Nashville setting, and even though I'm not big into country music, I feel hook, line and sinker into this world.  I also loved Bailey.  The girl that nobody seems to want and only notices when she acts like a typical teenager and starts rebelling.  Given how her parents steamroll over her the minute a record company blows sunshine up their butts over Julie - well let's just say I thought Bailey's reasons for acting out were fairly compelling.

What didn't work for me was the romance, specifically Sam.  Granted Sam is 18 and therefore acts how one might expect an 18-year-old guy to act.  Namely, he's selfish.  For a good long while I had a hard time believing he "cared" about Bailey.  Too often it's "what can you do for me and how can you get me what I want in the end," which needless to say once he finds out that her sister has a Big Ol' Record Contract.....I wanted to slap this boy into next Tuesday.  Is Bailey blameless?  Well, no.  She's running and hiding, licking her wounds in the corner instead of fighting.  But Sam was beyond the pale for me for a good long while and I felt strongly that he was using her.

The author starts to turn it around at the very end though.  It takes Bailey blowing up.  I mean, really blowing up.  At Sam, then her parents, and finally that spurs Sam on to declare his undying love and how he truly cares about her and yada yada yada.  It does helps, but I can't quite forget the vibe I got from him throughout the rest of the story.  That he's a user.  That he only wants what he wants and he'll use anybody he can to get what he wants. This is also the moment when Echols discloses Sam's Tragic Back-Story which smacked to me of Hey Look, I'm a Tragic 18-Year-Old Boy So It's OK To Overlook the Fact That I'm Using the Heroine for Most of the Book.  However, while Sam is a jerk, we're currently living in a genre world where authors are trying to convince readers that hardened criminals and abusers are "heroes" - so really Sam acting like a selfish 18-year-old kid is, perhaps, nit-picky of me.

So it's truly a mixed bag here.  I enjoyed it.  It's a book that will stick with me for a while.  But as a romance I found it problematic.  As an 18-year-old girl finding her voice?  It worked better.

Final Grade = C+

Top 3: Contest Judging OCCRWA's Book Buyer's Best

A couple of weeks ago I attended OCCRWA's (Orange County, California) annual Birthday Bash celebration to announce the Top Pick winner for their annual Book Buyer's Best contest.  This is a published authors contest (self-published entries were included this year).  My job was to read the highest scoring books in each category (nine all together) and pick "the best one."  While a lot of reading?  I didn't have to write out a bunch of score cards.  It was see books, read books, pick a book.

I thought about talking about all the books I read, but in the end I've decided to focus on "the best ones."  These were the Top 3, and let's talk about them from third place on down to the final winner:

A Taste For Scandal by Erin Knightley won the historical category.  The second book in a series, it stands alone very well (obviously, since I'd never read her before).  This is one of those Duke's Son Falls In Love With A Nobody books - which is to say you read it for the fairy tale.  There is some angst, but this is a romance - so naturally everything turns out rosy in the end, when in "real life, back in those days" the couple would undoubtedly have faced continual blow-back for their unconventional marriage.

What I really liked, besides the fairy tale?  The heroine is a baker.  Certainly baking heroines have been running amok in contemporary small town romances, but not so in historicals.  So the historical tidbits of what it was like to bake during Regency times?  Really interesting.  Also, the hero behaves like one would expect him to behave as the eldest son of a still-living Duke.  He parties.  He's got a reputation.  He's a nice guy underneath, but he's not exactly a paragon of responsibility when this story starts.  If I was grading this book?  Probably a B-.  I'd read more Knightley.

Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols won the YA category and made me want to punch every teenager I see at work in the throat.  These whipper-snappers?  They have NO clue how good they have it.  Where were books like this when I was a teen?!

Heroine is pure white trash, moving from trailer park to trailer park with her largely absent (naturally, this is a YA novel) mother.  Their latest home is next to a small airstrip, and the heroine, with ambition to not be her mother - hops the fence and gets a job as office girl/gopher.  She's 14 when she forges her mother's signature on a permission form and starts taking flying lessons with a man who owns a business pulling advertising banners.  Fast forward four years, her mentor is dead, and his twin 18-year-old sons inherit the business.  The heroine has plans, which do not involve hitching her wagon to silver-spoon twin brothers who will probably run the business into the ground.  One of them has other ideas though, and essential blackmails her into sticking around.

Reading the back cover copy, it sounds like a love triangle story - but, trust me, it's not.  I loved this heroine.  I know this heroine.  I'm pretty damn sure I went to high school with her.  I also found it incredibly telling that this was the contest read that handled "the sex stuff" the best.  It was responsible, sexy and believably.  This book came very, very close to being my "top pick."  So much so that I had to take Labor Day weekend to really mull it over.  If I were grading this, it would be a B+.  In the end though?  It lost out to....

Sea Change by Karen White which won the Romantic Elements category and ended up being my Top Pick.

This is a book that has something for everybody, literally.  Which sounds like a hot mess, but it's not.  I'd classify it as Southern Gothic.  It's a dual narrative story, alternating from present day to the early 1800s.  The present day story involves the heroine, a midwife, who after a whirlwind courtship marries the man of her dreams.  Except it turns out the man of her dreams was married before and Wife #1 died in an "accident."  The historical story also tells the story of a midwife, her life with her husband, unmarried sister, and the effect the War of 1812 has on them.  With this dual narrative, both involving midwives, naturally some light paranormal elements come into play to connect to the two stories.

It's beautifully written, with an evocative sense of place.  White does everything with this book (historical, contemporary, paranormal, Gothic, romance, mystery) and does it all well.  None of the elements in this story annoyed me, which is especially telling with the paranormal aspect as it's typically something that would annoy me no end.  But it didn't here, because this author swept me up and took me away to this world she created.  Also, as a librarian, it's the sort of book I can damn near recommend to anybody.  What ultimately tipped me over the edge?  Besides how wonderful the writing was?  That she was able to pull off all those elements in the same story and not screw any of them up.  I don't have a burning desire to reread it, but it's better than a B+.  My final grade would probably be an A-.

So there you have it - the best of the contest reads for 2013.  If you'd like to see all the finalists, you can check out OCCRWA's BBB contest page.  It was a lot of work, getting through nine books, but it ended up being a nice experience.  I told them to consider me again for next year - even if I'm not the Top Pick judge.  I'd happily serve as a first-round judge again (which I've done in the past).