Review - - Resurrection

Resurrection:a ROCK SOLID romance

By Karina Bliss

Publisher: Karina Bliss

Release Date: June 17, 2018

Reviewed by Janga

Once there was Stormy Hagen, a, breast-implanted, collagen-injected platinum blonde beauty, one-time girlfriend of rock legend Zander Freedman and paparazzi-fare after her breakup with Zander and her resulting self-destructive spiral. Stormy has disappeared, and in her stead is Lily Stuart, a pretty woman with understated looks whose hair is now a golden brown and whose breasts are all her. Lily is happy working as nanny for the children of a British family while completing an online degree in early childhood education. Her happy life is threatened when a sex tape made by Travis Calvert, the original Rage guitarist and certified creep with whom Stormy hooked up in her self-destruction, is stolen and posted online. To protect her new identity and to shield her employers from intruding paparazzi, Lily turns to her best friend Dimity Graham for help. Dimity offers Lily sanctuary at the secluded home currently being rented by Dimity’s boyfriend Seth Curran and his bandmate Moss McFadden.

Moss is a reserved loner who uses a surly exterior to protect himself from allowing anyone too close. He is still reeling from the repercussions after the Zander Freedman scandal and Zander’s ultimate decision not to return to his career, meaning the end of the new Rage. Wary of investing again as much as he invested in Rage, Moss maintains a distance even from the affable Seth and from the third member of their band, Jared Walker. Moss is also feeling the pressure of his position as lead singer for T-Minus 6, the new band. Still, he remembers the essential sweetness of Stormy and his feelings for her, and when it becomes clear that she will not remain unless she is paying her way, he offers her a job as his driver.

The job is not manufactured. Moss has lost his driver’s license, and having to depend on Dimity, who has enormous responsibilities as the manager of T-Minus 6 plus her continued work for Zander and his wife, writer Elizabeth Winston, leaves both Dimity and Moss short-tempered. Lily is relieved to find that the job is no sinecure. Unlike Seth and Jared who are happily domestic when not working on their music, Moss is living the bad-boy rock star life to the hilt, hitting the bars, hooking up with groupies, and staying out into the wee hours while sleeping in the next day. The schedule is a challenge for Lily, a morning person and one who knows from experience the shallowness of the bar scene.

Moss finds himself just as attracted to Lily as he was to Stormy, and on her part, Lily fights acknowledging her attraction to him, even when he invades her X-rated dreams. The two discover the common experience of a childhood physically and emotionally poverty-stricken, and Lily finds out there is much more to Moss’s night life than a rock star run wild. But the more they are drawn together, the more they are convinced that they can never work as a couple. When Moss is confronted with the greatest challenge of his life just as T-Minus 6 begins to achieve the success they have dreamed of, Lily is there to help him, and their lives become more entangled. However, Moss can’t believe he will ever be good enough to be the man Lily needs, and Lily fears that the repercussions of the sex tape, which have not disappeared as new scandals emerge, will taint Moss’s career and his life. Can these two wounded souls move past all the obstacles and prove to themselves and to those who care about them both that they can save one another?

The fourth story in Karina Bliss’s Rock Solid series is another winner. The title alludes to both the emergence of a new rock band from Rage and to the transformed lives of the protagonists. Bliss takes on standard stereotypes, the grasping, promiscuous groupie and the self-indulgent rock star, and turns them into multidimensional characters who win readers’ interest and affection. Lily and Moss are imperfect people who have made mistakes, but they earn the reader’s sympathy because the author shows their motivations and has them hold themselves accountable for their errors. I found Lily appealing from her appearances in early books, and I was invested in her story immediately in this one. It took longer for Moss to win me over because he is a darker character, but I trusted Bliss who had already proved with Rise that she could make me care about a character I initially disliked. I soon fell for Moss heart and head.

As a fan of the series, I was delighted to see more of Dimity and Seth (Fall) and Kayla and Jared—along with five-year-old Maddie and Rocco, almost two (Play). Even Zander and Elizabeth (Rise) are part of the story via modern technology. Series fans will also enjoy the triumph of T-Minus 6. Resurrection can be read as a standalone, but it will certainly be a more nuanced read for those who have read the earlier books.

I have found few of the rock-star books that have emerged in recent years that earned the status of keeper for me. Karina Bliss’s skills at creating characters who linger in my mind and her gift for lucid prose that sometimes becomes lyrical make this series a rare exception. I loved this book! I loved the series! In fact, I plan to make a reread, beginning with What the Librarian Did, part of my summer reading. I give Resurrection my highest recommendation.



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