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Author: MJ Fields

Book: River James

tl;dr recommendation: a rough and fierce look at believable characters who are beautifully flawed. 5 stars!

Book Summary:

When he fell in love, he fell hard. When he lost her, he lost his will.

Drugs, sex, and rock and roll—in that order—became his life.

River James, the drummer for Steel Total Destruction, loved the brotherhood he formed with his unlikely best friend and his band mates, and the family he found in his label until one tragic accident takes it all away in the blink of an eye. Twisted metal, shattered bones, crushed dreams, and torn wreckage causes deep, dark secrets to be revealed and he quickly turns to the sure things in life: drugs and women. Will he find himself in the wreckage or will he lose his way in the smoke and debris?

The first person in her family to graduate from high school and college, Keanna Sutton is flying high on her accomplishments. She has the career and man of her dreams…or so she thought. While recovering from a break-up she has a chance run-in with a tall, handsome, silver-tongued drummer who tests her strength and ability to hold her own tongue. She desperately tries to ignore the implausible attraction to River – a man she knows will be no good for her. When she finally throws caution to the wind, she finds herself getting rocked the only way a badass like River can: hard and nasty. Will the hottest night of her life end there? Or will she lose herself in a man whose only promise is that a lady always comes first?

Longer Review:

Holy shit. Gritty, raw and chokingly real, Fields delivers an emotional and angst ridden novel that drums right into your heart and soul. River is flawed. Hurt. Tormented. He’s an addict but, as most addicts do, he doesn’t truly recognize the level of his problem. There’s a reason for his addiction – for his desire to escape the world surrounding him – for wanting to check out of reality and bask in the bliss of the drug. He’s fighting so hard to forget the past that he almost misses out on his future.

Keanna is one strong as fuck woman. She works at an addiction center, but ironically that’s not where she meets River. There’s something that pulls them to each other, like magnets of lust; but then there’s something more than keeps them near one another even while River is self destructing in her face. However, don’t be concerned. Keanna doesn’t let River walk all over her and especially doesn’t let his addiction be ignored.

There’s so much EMOTION in this book. It deals with real issues and real people and their real reactions to them. This is why MJ is so popular and why her books will continue to sell phenomenally well – she manages to hook the reader in with the purity of the story, giving them the closest look into the truths of the darkest moments in her characters’ lives.

This was my first Fields novel, but it won’t be my last – this book isn’t glossy or fluffy but rather a rough and fierce look at believable characters who are beautifully flawed. 5 stars!

[I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review]