There Are Never Enough Stupid Love Songs

We always need Another Stupid Love Song. Miranda MacLeod and Em Stevens did a wonderful job in writing this beautiful romance, set in the music business.

Just a few weeks ago I read another book (The Duet by Harper Bliss) that was also set in the music industry. Although there are a lot of similarities, age gap, comeback tour, rock music, and loss of a band member, they are totally different and both very entertaining.

Maxine Gardner started her music career at 17 with the slightly older sisters Grace and Cindy Weathers as the Matchstick Girls. As one of the first all-female bands, they had to put up with a lot of misogyny that escalated to threats and milk-pack throwing. Coming out as a lesbian in this environment was an impossibility. So Maxi was very vague about her sexuality until the present, 25 years later. Too much fear of hostility and rejection of her otherness was drilled into her very early by her father. Such a pattern of behavior is not easy to change after these long years. Now she is at a turning point in her solo career, which she launched after the breakup of the Matchstick Girls. A tour with the old band could save her career but she knows that Cindy hates her, and blames her for the breakup, only she doesn’t know what she did.

Jade Weathers (28) is Grace’s daughter, she is a very talented musician who learned everything from her mother and she still mourns her death. She has a very close relationship with her aunt Cindy, who watches over Jade like a mother hen and wants to make sure that Jade doesn’t follow in Grace and Cindy’s footsteps, as they both had to promise Grace on her deathbed. But when Maxi takes the mat with an offer from her longtime manager for a one-of-a-lifetime reunion tour of the Matchstick Girls, everything could change. If only there weren’t these resentments against Maxi, who according to Cindy and Grace was to blame for the band’s breakup. Will they be able to work together?

The story is very well and fluently written, the two authors did a good job. The characters are well developed, with rough edges, a sense of responsibility, and humor. Maxi and Jade have a strong connection through music, they understand each other almost blindly from the beginning and they can help each other along in a way that no one else can or ever could. They are not only musically connected, but they also have a strong attraction and cannot escape it, although both believe they have no future together, whether because of the age difference or because they are at totally different places in life. But as we all know, never say never. Their chemistry is amazing, and the sex is hot as hell – especially when they are in New York. You will see or feel.

This story is not just about making music and the reunion tour. It’s about finally clearing up old misunderstandings and repairing friendships, about family, about how our experiences growing up, good and bad, shaped us. It’s about overcoming our own shadows and taking a risk, whether it’s in love or a commitment we made that doesn’t fit at all with our own idea of the future. It’s about standing up and determining your own life and not being told by everyone what you should and shouldn’t do. And above all, it’s about trust, trust in one’s own feelings, and trust in the supposed enemy, who perhaps does not act out of pure self-interest.

A very entertaining romance with a surprising ending that I did not expect at first but makes sense, at least as far as the music business is concerned. 4.5 ??

Thanks to the authors for providing an ARC for an honest review.