This was a decent read. It was light and quick to read. The characters were likable and the overall plot was good. I recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

I had high hopes for this, as it sounded fun and I liked the theatre setting. Unfortunately it’s a DNF for me. There’s not enough story or drama for a non-romance novel (the prologue introduces an apparently HUGE DRAMATIC MOMENT - which doesn’t seem that dramatic but we’re told in the text that it is - and then it isn’t even mentioned for the next few chapters. It also doesn’t work as a romance because the two main characters don’t actually seem interested in each other at all, not even in the classic ‘I hate you because I want you so much’ way - instead, she seems to pity him and he finds her boring. Not very romantic!

There are things I liked about this book but a lot that didn’t work for me. The blurb promises secrets and yes, those secrets are all over the place. But instead of drawing me in and making me more interested in finding out about them, they only annoyed me. Both of them I guessed fairly quickly.

Kenzie loves the theater. At times it seems she’s obsessed with it and lives for the productions. I think yearning is what was supposed to be the overriding emotion but “puppy eyes pathetic” is how it came across. She also pushes her way into the life of the drifter she discovers behind the theater. Does she know this man? No but she’s ready to make contact, be alone with him, offer to let him stay in her house even. He’s got a dog she likes but just having a dog doesn’t make him automatically okay.

Dylan has overcome mutism due to a horrible event in his past. True he owes Kenzie and stage manager Lexi no explanations but as he watches them turn themselves inside out to try and be sensitive in their belief that he’s deaf, even he thinks he should have revealed the truth way before he does. Instead he doesn’t and lets them potentially say things and reveal things that they might not have wanted him to hear. It’s not that they really do say anything embarrassing but they might have. Then once she realizes what happened to him and how it affected him, Kenzie leaps to shield him from a local asshole. It comes off as patronizing.

Dylan has a traumatic past but he tells Kenzie that when he was growing up, he was allowed to be himself and wasn’t forced out of situations in which he felt safe. Yet he makes the decision to out Kenzie without her knowledge or agreement because “it’s for her own good.” Then another secret is revealed that he knows will affect her due to what he’s done and he says nothing to her. He feels like a dick but he still says nothing. Yes, I know this is a standard trope in romance novels and used to set up later conflict but this is twice that Dylan disappoints me.

I have no idea if the theater stuff is correct or not but since I don’t know much about it, I’m fine with it. Only I didn’t find it that interesting and had to force myself to keep reading about the nitty gritty details of staging a play. The story has quite a few instances when heightened conflicts are set up that either are never shown or fizzle. I’m thinking I’m going to see Drama! and Fireworks! then with only a few words, the conflict is diffused as if it never mattered much.

But Dylan has one last thing that really made me mad. Even his rushed and out of the blue proposal wasn’t as bad to me. Dylan seemingly abandons his dog. When he first appeared, Dylan’s got a special needs dog with him. It’s obvious that Dylan’s not Australian and he tells Kenzie that he found Phantom in Australia. Dylan hints that he, Dylan, is not there to stay. But, dammit, he also takes this dog on. He’s taken on responsibility for the dog! But when he decides to disappear, he leaves the dog with Kenzie along with a “he’s yours” note. Dylan is from Canada. Canada isn’t the Moon. Had he wanted to take Phantom with him (and he has the money to), I’m sure there are ways and means. WTF? Honestly at this point I was giving Dylan the finger.


And there’s a lovely scene at the end when one character gets the answers in life that she’s always wanted and that mean so much. Had the theater stuff interested me more, maybe it would have balanced out the rest. If only Kenzie hadn’t seemed so obsessed and Dylan hadn’t been a dick so many times.