Blending Chords by Amy Kaybach

I received this book for free from Author to facilitate my review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Callum
Guitarist. Rock star. Blind Rebels bandmate. My public persona embodies all of these titles fans have gifted upon me. But none of them matter as much as the role bestowed on me two years ago: father.

My son is my world, yet juggling being a single father with everything else hasn’t been easy. I know I need help, but how can I trust a stranger with the one thing my entire world revolves around?

Arista
I must get out of my sister’s house. As much as I love her, I can’t tolerate her handsy husband. Armed with a degree in early childhood education, I’m determined to find a live-in nanny position that will allow me to truly make a difference in a child’s life with one-on-one interaction.

Being a nanny for Callum Donogue looked like the opportunity of a lifetime. Unfortunately, he seems to resent me being there, spending time with his son. Can we find a way to make this work? Or will our constant clashing prompt him to hang up his guitar and abandon the Blind Rebels mid-tour?

Ok, so again, we all know that I don’t read a ton of romance books. Namely because I usually don’t care much for them. But there are certain types of romance books that I enjoy, and a good rockstar romance is one of them. So of course I was going to read the second book in the Blind Rebels series by Amy Kaybach. After how much I loved the first book, Bridging the Silence? There was no way you’d catch me dead not reading Blending Chords!

Blending Chords is the story of Blind Rebels guitarist Callum Donogue and the woman he hires to be his live-in nanny, Arista. Now before I go any further, I feel like I should post a couple of trigger warnings because, well, they’re there – there are mentions of suicidal thoughts, sexual assault/abuse, death of family members, and kidnapping. If any of these things are trigger points for you, I recommend being very careful while reading this book. Now…

I know I gave this book 5 stars as I did Bridging the Silence. If a book keeps me on my toes and wanting to read more, then it gets 5 stars, especially if it is a romance novel. So let’s get into why I gave it 5 stars, shall we?

Characters

Callum

I’m not going to lie, Callum can be an asshole. I mean, I get where he’s coming from – after all, he has a son¹Gibson to think/worry about, his son’s mother abandoned him and signed her rights to him away just a few days after he was born, and he’s a rock star who has obligations to his band, Blind Rebels. But he can still be a real asshole. At least he knows it and he makes attempts to rectify his mistakes when he’s being an asshole. Of course, there are a couple of parts where you’ll see that his being an asshole is completely justified.

Arista (Ari)

I giggled when I saw her name because I’m old enough to remember the record company called Arista.²I wonder if they’re still around…. In any case, I like that Ari has issues but does her best not to let them interfere too much with her life. Of course, she still, like any human being, let’s them define her life, but only to a point. Many people in her situation would be far more messed up than she is. She obviously cares about Gibson and about kids in general. She’s an interesting character who has layers.

Viola (Vi)

Although we don’t see a lot of Vi, she’s Ari’s older sister. I won’t give away why she’s important to the story, but I will say that she truly embodies what a sister should be. I really liked her and almost hope we can get a story (even if it’s a novella) about Vi’s life after Blending Chords.

Todd

Vi’s husband. Without giving too much away, I wanted to throttle him from the beginning to the end of the book. Believe me when I say you will too – and if you don’t, um…. yeah… I’m going to just leave that there. Asshole doesn’t begin to describe this person.

Review

This one took me longer to read, but that’s more because I was dealing with my own life issues than because the book wasn’t good enough to keep going on. I actually ended up starting the book on my phone because my Kindle needed to be charged and I wanted to get started on it.

Even when I wasn’t reading it because I couldn’t focus³Stupid life issues, I was thinking about it and wondering how certain things I’d already read would play out.

Amy certainly knows how to write great characters and great plot twists. There was one “plot twist” that involved a mystery character – who I correctly guessed before I found out who it was – but the character was written in a way that you did wonder who it could possibly be.

One of the first plot twists is one that will piss you off – I know it did me. How anyone could do that to Ari is beyond me and although you never do find out for certain who did it… I have a sneaking suspicion I know.

While this book doesn’t have the typical “burned by love” storyline, it does have atypical – because the people who burned them aren’t people they truly loved or even thought they truly loved. This makes it interesting to me because the burned by love trope is usually characterized by the one who is burned having truly loved/adored the person who hurt them. In one of our characters’ case, I want to beat the person who hurt them within an inch of their life.

One thing I like about Blending Chords – while they are meant to be read in order of release, meaning while you really should read Bridging the Silence first, you actually could read Blending Chords first and not be too lost. Sure, there might be a few things mentioned that make you wonder what’s going on, but for the most part, it reads like a stand alone book. Of course, that could be because I did read Bridging the Silence first.

I don’t believe that will be the case with the next book, Reviving the Rhythm⁴To be released in September 2022, based on the ending of Blending Chords, but we’ll see.

If you love Rockstar Romance or want to get into it, I highly recommend picking up both Bridging the Silence and Blending Chords. You’ll fall in love with these boys in Blind Rebels, I guarantee it.

Blending Chords will be available on Amazon as a Kindle book or in paperback on June 24, 2022. You can also purchase signed paperbacks on Amy’s website.