Book review: THE LOVE LINE, by Heidi McLaughlin

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yikes, I had no idea this book was connected to the Beaumont series. I read some of those books ages ago and remember absolutely nothing, so I went in completely blind. And honestly? It didn’t matter one bit. I was fascinated from the first chapter. The writing is smooth, entertaining, and full of heart.

Liam has been a rockstar for about thirty years, and now in his fifties, he and his bandmates JD and Harrison are feeling the wear and tear. The last tour had half‑filled venues, their bodies are creaky, and Liam just wants to be home with his wife and his grandbabies. Once he’s finally back, the guys start talking about retirement — and each of them has a beautiful reason to stay put for a while. Liam’s grandbabies are almost one, JD’s daughter is training for the Olympics, Harrison has a little boy he wants to enjoy. It’s sweet, grounded, and very real.

Then comes the twist: a producer from New York offers Liam a radio talk show where he gives advice to callers. At first he rejects it like a big “absolutely not,” but Bex, the producer, doesn’t give up. Two days later, Liam calls her back… and suddenly The Love Line with Liam is born.

The talk‑show sections were my favorite. It felt like a modern, heartfelt version of Dear Abby — direct, honest, and full of interesting situations. I could’ve read a whole giant book just of the call‑ins. They were that entertaining.

Of course, the show brings up old wounds, especially Liam’s estranged and abusive father. There’s no forgiveness there, but the emotional weight is handled with care, and you really feel Liam trying to make sense of it.

I loved all the family moments — the sons, daughters, grandbabies, the closeness between Josie and Liam. Beaumont feels like a small town full of love and community, and Liam and Josie have poured so much into making it a beautiful place to raise families. Now… I do need a family tree because there are marriages between bandmates’ kids, twins everywhere, triplets, babies popping out like popcorn. I loved the chaos but could not keep them straight.

The book ends with one issue resolved, but another problem from the radio listeners still hanging in the air. So I have a feeling this story will continue, and I will be waiting with excitement.

A heartfelt, entertaining, comforting read, completely enchanting. Five stars, easily.

Purchase links 

https://geni.us/theloveline 

About the author 

Heidi McLaughlin is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of The Beaumont Series, The Boys of Summer, and The Archers.

In 2012, Heidi turned her passion for reading into a full-fledged literary career, writing over twenty novels, including the acclaimed Forever My Girl.

Heidi’s first novel, Forever My Girl, has been adapted into a motion picture with LD Entertainment and Roadside Attractions, starring Alex Roe and Jessica Rothe, and opened in theaters on January 19, 2018, and is now available on DVD & Digital.

Connect with Heidi McLaughlin:

https://www.instagram.com/heidimclaughlinauthor/ 

Book review: EVERY SHATTERED NOTE, by Claudia Burgoa

Heartbreak Mixtapes #3

Dexter & Alyssa

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Aly is an event planner who feels held together with duct tape and hope. She and her friend June run their business while sharing an apartment, and you can feel how Aly lives in a constant state of stress — juggling contracts, invoices, backup plans, and disasters waiting to happen.

One of those disasters hits when the wedding band falls apart and she’s still missing a guitarist. She storms into the venue lobby, sees a drenched guy with a guitar case, and immediately scolds him into getting presentable in five minutes. From his smirk, I knew he wasn’t the guitarist. Later we learn he’s Dexter Vaughn, rockstar, of the imploded band Dead Moth Parade, and honestly, he handles the whole thing like a champ. He steps in, plays beautifully, and completely floors her. He loves the quiet, intimate setting — no chaos, no crowds, just music. He even tells her to call him again, and she pretends she’s not impressed.

Aly has deep abandonment issues, so she refuses to get attached. Dex comes from a famous musical family, but his life has been loud, messy, and numbed with booze and drugs. He’s convinced he doesn’t deserve anything good, especially not someone like her. Still, they keep emailing and texting, and he keeps showing up as her substitute wedding singer. His friends roast him nonstop, especially Eddie, who warns him that hiding the truth will blow up eventually.

Dex falls first; Aly falls slower and with a lot more hesitation.

When he finally tells her who he really is, she’s shocked and hurt because he made her feel safe. He convinces her to get away for a couple of days, flying her to his grandparents’ place in Baja California. It’s luxurious, and the truth comes out — she’s shaken, but she adjusts. They have a lovely weekend… until a phone call drags Dex back into the nightmare he’s been running from.

We finally learn the whole story: a family scandal, courtesy of his father, and a stepbrother who resurfaces whenever he wants money or attention. This time, Dex decides he’s done hiding and he goes to fix things, asking Ally to wait for him. 

The romance is lovely, and I really liked how honest they were once they let themselves open up. Dex hides his identity, but his feelings for Ally are always real. Ally is scared, but she never pretends otherwise.

My biggest issue is the excessive emotional description. Because Dex is a musician, everything is described in musical metaphors — his guitar vibrating with feelings, sensations layered on sensations. It gets overwhelming, and sometimes the actual story gets buried under all the poetic babble. I also felt like we never got the full backstory for either of them. We see the symptoms — Ally overworking, Dex haunted by his past — but not the deeper roots. I skimmed parts because the emotional overload slowed things down.

Still, their connection is sweet, steady, and worth rooting for. Once they choose each other, they don’t let go.

Purchase links

https://a.co/d/01SdqI8w

About the author

Claudia is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. 

She writes alluring, thrilling stories about complicated women and the men who take their breaths away. Her books are the perfect blend of steamy and heartfelt, filled with emotional characters and explosive chemistry. Her writing takes readers to new heights, providing a variety of tears, laughs, and shocking moments that leave fans on the edge of their seats.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, her youngest two children, and three fluffy dogs.

When Claudia is not writing, you can find her reading, knitting, or just hanging out with her family. At nights, she likes to binge watches shows or movies with her equally geeky husband.

Connect with Claudia Burgoa:

https://claudiayburgoa.com/wp/links/ 

Book review: (NOT SO) SIMPLE LYRICS, by Claudia Burgoa

Heartbreak Mixtapes #1

Roderick & Kit

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This story isn’t a second‑chance romance so much as a reclamation—of self, of music, of the kind of love that survives the wreckage. Roderick Wilder and Kit Dempsey grew up believing they were inevitable, two prodigies orbiting the same broken rock‑royalty universe. Life, addiction, and the sins of the generation before them blew that apart spectacularly.

What I loved is that this book doesn’t pretend healing is pretty. Roderick’s fall is messy, humiliating, and painfully human, and his climb back up is slow, grounded, and full of the kind of work most rock‑star romances skip. Volunteering at shelters, calling the people he hurt, learning to live with consequences—this is a man rebuilding himself brick by brick, not for applause, but because he’s finally tired of being broken.

And then there’s the anonymous online friendship—DeadStrings and StringTheory27—two musicians trading playlists like lifelines. Their conversations feel like late‑night therapy sessions wrapped in song recommendations, and the emotional intimacy that grows there is the quiet heartbeat of the book. It’s tender, vulnerable, and strangely domestic, even before they know who’s on the other side of the screen.

Kit, for her part, is carrying her own grief, guilt, and exhaustion, and the book gives her space to unravel and rebuild too. When their paths finally cross again in the real world, it’s not fireworks—it’s recognition. Two people who once loved each other at nineteen meeting again at thirty, bruised but wiser, and choosing to see each other clearly.

This isn’t a slow burn; it’s a no burn until suddenly everything is warm again. The romance is gentle, almost shy, built on forgiveness, accountability, and the quiet joy of finding someone who knows your ghosts and stays anyway. And yes, Otis the dog and Allegra the cat absolutely steal scenes.

In the end, it’s a story about choosing a quieter life, a healthier love, and a future that doesn’t look anything like the past. Soft, redemptive, and unexpectedly comforting.

Purchase links

https://geni.us/NSSLZon

About the author

Claudia is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. 

She writes alluring, thrilling stories about complicated women and the men who take their breaths away. Her books are the perfect blend of steamy and heartfelt, filled with emotional characters and explosive chemistry. Her writing takes readers to new heights, providing a variety of tears, laughs, and shocking moments that leave fans on the edge of their seats.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, her youngest two children, and three fluffy dogs.

When Claudia is not writing, you can find her reading, knitting, or just hanging out with her family. At nights, she likes to binge watches shows or movies with her equally geeky husband.

Connect with Claudia Burgoa:

https://claudiayburgoa.com/wp/links/ 

Book review: LAST CHORUS, by L.M. Halloran

A Perfect Song duet - part 2

Like the author promised, this was an angsty ride where she wrenched my heart, and the hearts of Eva and Wilder. In the previous book, Eva and Wilder had a calamitous ending where she asked never to talk again, Wilder accepted, full of guilt, and they have been living for six years on the fringes of each other’s lives, keeping their distance at awards and music events. Still, her parents are very worried because Eva is a shadow of the vibrant girl she used to be, and they fear she’s in the clutches of a very controlling man, Clay Eaton.

They ask help from Wilder, he takes a peek at them during  a New Year’s Eve party, and decides she does need help. And the rest is a story of love, giving, rescue, awakening a glorious woman to her wondrousness, and winning again that unfathomable soul mates love that has always lived within but had nearly extinguished with trauma, guilt, and addiction. 

There’s a little bit of suspense when you’re dealing with an unscrupulous man who wants revenge, of the PR nightmare type, delight in watching a very mature Wilder, who had won the battle over his addictions and now manages his anxiety successfully; he’s in charge and ready to claim his woman. Eva is initially lost and floundering, but she starts to see, and live, and do her music again, as she recovers. 

Their second-chance love story is beautiful, emotional, passionate, funny, and completely wonderful to read. 

Purchase links

https://a.co/d/6nLiN89 

Available in KU 

About the author

When not writing or reading, the author can be found gardening barefoot or chasing her spirited daughter. Some of her favorite things are puzzles, podcasts, and small dogs that resemble Ewoks. Home is Portland, Oregon.

Connect with L.M. Halloran:

https://www.lmhalloran.com/links/

Book review: THE FAULT IN FOREVER, by Claudia Burgoa

I loved this book even though it was very heartbreaking.  It’s full blast angst, all the time, as a ghost from a tragic past comes back to haunt.  So I was in angsty heaven!

Ophelia and Haydn are taking their relationship to a new level, she’s moving in with him, to the house he bought with her in mind.  They have been together five years, and he has fought for their love, helping her get over a past heartbreak that nearly destroyed her.  Now, hopeful for a new happy future, they get a surprise phone call, the man she loved many years ago and believed to be dead, is not only alive, but awake from a five-year coma, and she’s his guardian!

To say that this story is turbulent, full of many tears and guilt and heartbreak is an understatement on the angsty ride it took me on. And I loved every word of it!

All the pain, the survivor’s guilt, the trauma from that loss comes back to the front, and she has more questions than answers.  She didn’t know he was alive, his parents kept her away from him after the accident.  She didn’t know how she came to be his guardian and in charge.  And with all those questions, she and Haydn fly to Keaton’s side to see what had to be done.  This is a crazy love triangle, because one of the three was initially dead, then awoken, and invalid.  Haydn, throughout all this book, was solidly on Ophelia’s side, helping her, watching over her, making sure she rests and eats.  It’s heartbreaking for both of them, more so for Haydn who is now unsure if he will lose the woman who is everything to him.

The author did a great job of releasing snippets of information as the story evolves, so we eventually get a complete picture of all the elements involved in the story.  Just when you think you have it handled, she hands you another whammy, so you start to cry again and wonder what the heck will happen now.  

The pace is slow and reflective, we get to know all the characters feelings and thoughts, but thankfully it moves on a steady pace and you know you’re getting somewhere, hoping for an HEA.  I was all the time Team Haydn, because Keane for all his confusion, memory loss, and lack of strength, was still a entitled and selfish.  He didn’t deserve the girl, IMO!

Lovely, sad, romantic, angsty, and super riveting.

Purchase links

https://geni.us/TFIF 

Available in KU 

About the author

Claudia is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. 

She writes alluring, thrilling stories about complicated women and the men who take their breaths away. Her books are the perfect blend of steamy and heartfelt, filled with emotional characters and explosive chemistry. Her writing takes readers to new heights, providing a variety of tears, laughs, and shocking moments that leave fans on the edge of their seats.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, her youngest two children, and three fluffy dogs.

When Claudia is not writing, you can find her reading, knitting, or just hanging out with her family. At nights, she likes to binge watches shows or movies with her equally geeky husband.

Connect with Claudia Burgoa:

https://claudiayburgoa.com/wp/links/ 

Book review: THE SOUND OF FOREVER, by Claudia Burgoa

The first part of this book is blabby, lots of thoughts, like setting the stage for the emotional whammy the author is going to serve us during the book.  The book is like a continuation of The Fault in Forever, since this is Keane Stone’s story.  He had been in an car accident with his fiancée Ophelia, both almost died, she recovered, but Keane was in a coma for five years.  Ophelia found another love and he now has the long lonely journey into rehabilitating his body from the coma.  I loved this book because it presents us the character arc of Keane as he transitions from a selfish drug addict into a decent guy who lives for someone new.

First Keane went into rehab for ninety days to deal with his former addiction, to make sure he won’t fall back as he struggles with his many emotional and physical issues.  Then he moves to Luna Harbor, a small town, where he can have peace and space.  And there he meets his destiny!

Julianna was estranged from her older sister since their mother died.  Elena was a difficult person, and she hoarded all their mother’s possessions and shut out Julianna and her brother Oscar.  When she receives a phone call informing her that her sister is dying and she’s been appointed guardian of her little girl, she’s floored.  She may be estranged from her sister but she was not ready to lose her.  She takes her niece Rayne and moves to Luna Harbor so they can both mourn the loss of Elena and give them a chance to adjust together.  Both are struggling as they try to belong together. 

One thing that felt like serendipity is that Keane and Ophelia were having a baby, but the baby didn’t survive the accident. She would have been six years old, and that’s exactly Rayne’s age when they meet.  So it felt like kismet, a chance for Keane to make amends and repair his heart as he learns to care and protect another little girl.  I think Rayne was instrumental in Keane’s emotional growth.

The story is romantic, slow burn, positive and redemptive.  At some moments, Keane had doubts he would come out of the dark cloud he was living in, unsure he would get his music back.  And in the end, he not only got the music, he got a family too!

I love this author’s stories because they center around an angsty story.  There is sex, but as is necessary to the story.  She hasn’t fallen into the habit of other authors of using lots of sex scenes to make her books more commercial and for this she’s earned my admiration and respect.  Julianna and Keaton click because she brings peace and acceptance into his world, and he gives her the strength and protection she strongly needs at this point in her life.

Lovely story, very emotional and heartwarming!

Purchase links

https://geni.us/TheSoundofForever

Available in KU 

About the author

Claudia is an award-winning, USA Today bestselling author. 

She writes alluring, thrilling stories about complicated women and the men who take their breaths away. Her books are the perfect blend of steamy and heartfelt, filled with emotional characters and explosive chemistry. Her writing takes readers to new heights, providing a variety of tears, laughs, and shocking moments that leave fans on the edge of their seats.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, her youngest two children, and three fluffy dogs.

When Claudia is not writing, you can find her reading, knitting, or just hanging out with her family. At nights, she likes to binge watches shows or movies with her equally geeky husband.

Connect with Claudia Burgoa:

https://claudiayburgoa.com/wp/links/