Book review: DREAM ON, by Jennifer Hartmann

This is the angsty type of story that I like, people dealing with issues that stop them from realizing their dreams.  Stevie dreams of a future in Hollywood, doing films with music and singing.  Lex has already done Hollywood, but a traumatic event has him running away to Chicago.

Stevie is poor but has a happy home life; Lex is wealthy but has a crappy home life.  Guess who is better off?  He sees Stevie’s home and it smells like happiness and he loves being there, crawling from her bedroom window to the roof and look at the stars.  This is the happiest he’s been.

 A tragic accident tears them apart, Lex returns to Hollywood and his movies, she’s left with physical damages and a broken heart, making do with singing at a bar.  

When Lex realizes he needs her at his side to give credence to the movie based on their story, he brings her home and realizes why he hasn’t been happy and why he can’t sleep.  His mother is a cancer eroding their lives, and I saw Lex acting as a wimp, taking all the manipulations and believing that he’s not enough to protect Stevie.

Stevie’s side of the story is full of love, family and support.  Lex’s side is full of manipulations, expectations, horrible memories.  This contrast works during all the story, and I feel sorry for Stevie’s all encompassing love, and angry at Lex’s listlessness.

This story was so riveting, as Lex and Stevie work for their happiness, Stevie with a ferociousness full of love and determination.  I saw Lex as an empty soul, like his life in Hollywood and his parents killed his zest for life, his acceptance of not having happiness. He was sort of floating around, accepting cues from his mother and his agent, letting events move him around, not doing anything to secure his happiness and take charge of his life.  

I got a little tired of seeing him suffer from insomnia, suffer from his mother’s constant bullying, coast along in an insufficient life, and not rallying.  I realized then that he’s only twenty-two, he’s young and he didn’t have the best modeling on how to live a successful life, unlike Stevie who had excellent models.  

I haven’t been so happy at reaching an HEA!  This couple really had a hard time getting there, but once eradicating the poison from his life, Lex finally got it and zoomed up high.  Great story!

Purchase links

FREE with #kindleunlimited

Amazon: https://bit.ly/45haCkU

Limited deluxe edition paperback: https://geni.us/DreamOnNovel

Audible: https://bit.ly/4lQWFkB

Narrated by: Angelina Rocca & Lee Samue

Goodreads: https://bit.ly/4kpbme2

About the author 

Jennifer Hartmann resides in northern Illinois with her own personal romance hero and three children. When she is not writing angsty love stories, she is likely pondering all the ways she can break your heart and piece it back together again. She enjoys sunsets (because mornings are hard), bike riding, traveling, bingeing Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns, and that time of day when coffee gets replaced by wine. She loves tacos. She also really, really wants to pet your dog.

http://www.jenniferhartmannauthor.com

Book review: FALLING LIKE STARS, by Emma Scott

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m gobsmacked and in love, Emma Scott has produced another masterpiece and it has me reeling with all kinds of feelings. As soon as I finished the book, I had to get back to the beginning to read again because it’s that delicious, angsty, and emotional.

Hollywood love stories are my favorite, and this one is perfect, a little slow burn, a love triangle with one psycho actress that will eventually get her comeuppance, a sweet young woman with a broken heart full of guilt and this wonderful man, full of kindness and integrity.

As with all Emma Scott’s stories, there are personal experiences woven into the story and they make the story more poignant, more personal. I saw her heart in many moments of the story, and especially the references to the blue butterfly. All of us who have been with the author for the last few years, know about the blue butterfly and the loss it represents, and it gave this story so much more meaning and made it more personal to us, more emotional.

Emma gives us characters that have good in their hearts, but some sort of heartbreak, and we are honored to walk their journey with them, learn from their experiences, and together emerge triumphant because love was found and the issues have been dealt with, allowing these characters that we now love, to have their happy ever after.

There are also fun and brilliant parts that made me laugh such as this: “Every single person at this party would surrender their Ozempic pens for a piece of your attention.” I love these  subtle nudges of humor!

A beautiful story that after reading, I need a break before starting another book because there is just no comparison, at all.

Purchase links

FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3SocRNr

Amazon Worldwide: https://mybook.to/FallingLikeStarsES

Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3YiNxwm

About the author 

Emma Scott is a USA Today and Wall St. Journal bestselling author whose books have been translated in six languages and featured in Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, New York Daily News and USA Today's Happy Ever After. She writes emotional, character-driven romances in which art and love intertwine to heal, and in which love always wins. If you enjoy emotionally-charged stories that rip your heart out and put it back together again, with diverse characters and kind-hearted heroes, you will enjoy her novels. 

 

Connect with Emma

Website: https://www.emmascottwrites.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10405165.Emma_Scott

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2yUnFKJ

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmmaScottwrites/

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/906742879369651/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmascottwrites/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/emma-scott

Verve: https://ververomance.com/app/emmascott