In Every Time You Hear That Song, the author weaves a captivating narrative that seamlessly intertwines the lives of two women across decades, connected by the melodies of country music. Seventeen-year-old aspiring journalist Darren Purchase finds herself on an unexpected road trip with her coworker Kendall as they chase the clues of a scavenger hunt triggered by the unveiling of a country music legend's empty time capsule.
The characters are developed well, and the author navigates the intricacies of their emotions with sensitivity. The storytelling is immersive, with each chapter revealing layers of the characters' lives, dreams, and the price they paid for success.
While the scavenger hunt premise adds an element of excitement, the pacing occasionally falters, causing moments of disconnection between the past and present narratives. Despite this, the novel remains a compelling exploration of the sacrifices made in the pursuit of fame and the enduring impact of love across generations.
Every Time You Hear That Song is a poignant celebration of complicated women, authentic living, and the timeless allure of country music. The author delivers a heartfelt coming-of-age story that transcends its genre, leaving readers with a deeper appreciation for the enduring power of storytelling and the melodies that shape our lives.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Absolutely everyone should read this book, immediately (if not sooner). The mystery of Decklee Cassel and Mickinlee Hooper and the time capsule and the new music and the road trip... Everything about this was heartfelt, intriguing, heartbreaking, and ultimately just perfect. Loved it.

This is a “small town, big dreams” wishes come true! Beautifully written and constantly intriguing! This story is for lovers of Dolly Parton and those who have big-town dreams outside of Hollywood.

thank you net galley for the arc. so this book was ok not my type of read but still cute.so this is about a teenage girl who go on a road trip to find her favorite counrty music singer.

*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*

Decklee Cassel fought her way to the top, and nothing could stop her blind ambition. Starting off as a scrap of a girl in Memphis, Tennessee, Decklee becomes a beloved country music icon whose mysterious, post-death time capsule sparks a nationwide hunt.

Darren Purchase is desperate to escape her small hometown of Mayberry. An aspiring journalist and lifetime lover of Decklee’s music, Darren sets out with her unlikely companion to try to find the singer’s lost album– and the $3 million dollars that comes with it.

Both Decklee and Darren’s point of views were interesting, compelling, and complex– while I enjoyed Decklee’s story more, Darren’s own coming of age journey was heartwarming.

EVERY TIME YOU HEAR THAT SONG is a lightening-in-a-bottle story, one filled with love and longing and music that sings to your soul in all the best ways. The best way that I can think to describe this story, is a perfect YA mix of Daisy Jones and the Six with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and a little bit of Dolly Parton thrown in.

Great book with fantastic use of dual POV and dual timeline. The writing style was perfect and it was a really solid book about finding yourself. I love how one's character was ambitious to a fault and paid the price for it because she refused to grow. You rarely see it in female character without it being weaponized by misogyny.

I chose this book because it gave me “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” vibes and it didn’t disappoint me. I fell in love with Decklee almost instantaneously. She’s a great character. Okay, she’s not the greatest person, but who want a perfect person? I want a characters with flaws and she is that character. I love her so damn much!
I like Darren too and I like her journey with Kendall, those two are really cute together, but I fell in love with the complicated and a little toxic relationship between Decklee and Mickenlee. I enjoyed their relationship a little too much, but they touched my heart in a deep way. I don’t think I can ever be able to stop thinking about them.
I enjoyed the two storylines combined and how they intertwined. I love everything about this book, if I have to be honest, it’s the best book I read so far this year.

"every time you hear that song" is a dual pov, dual timeline story about darren purchase, a girl from a small town in arkansas who dreams of getting out, and decklee cassel, a girl who got out of the same small town 60 years prior. darren has spent her whole life listening to decklee's music and learning everything she can about her, and when decklee passes away and her estate announces a scavenger hunt for a time capsule, a brand new, never before heard album and 3 million dollars. from decklee's pov, we see her rise to fame, her partnership with the mysterious mickenlee hooper, and the years leading up to the making of the unreleased album. i won't say much more because people who read this book deserve to be surprised as the story unfolds and we learn more about darren and decklee's lives, how they parallel each other and how they differ. this book is a small town romance, but it's so much more than that, too—it's about ambitious women who have dreams bigger than their towns, about how fame can corrupt even the best relationships, and how much a person sacrifices to get to the top. if you like small town romances, sapphic characters and want to read about a country star who can be best described as "dolly parton meets taylor swift but make her gay," then this book is definitely for you.

Country musician legend Decklee Cassel is dead and her long awaited time capsule is set to be opened at her televised funeral. Said to contain letters and photos from throughout the singer’s illustrious career as well as a brand new album, the capsule is highly anticipated by the singer’s many fans including aspiring journalist, Darren Purchase. Darren is from the same small town as Decklee and just as desperate to escape it. When the time capsule turns out to be empty and a trail of clues are left instead, Darren seizes the opportunity to track down Decklee’s lost album and win the cash prize that could get her out of this town.

I really enjoyed this book! It is told in a dual timeline, alternating between following Decklee’s rise to fame and Darren following the clues post Decklee’s death. It read like a mystery and I enjoyed how different pieces were presented to us in the two timelines. The two stories were woven together very well. I enjoyed both perspectives but I did prefer the past timeline a little bit more. I liked diving into Decklee’s character behind her public persona. She was a very flawed character and it was interesting to see her life unfold.
Both of the main characters are queer- Decklee is a lesbian and Darren is bisexual!
Overall, I had a good time reading this and I would recommend it!

Thank you so much to PENGUIN GROUP, Penguin Young Readers Group, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

Every Time You Hear That Song follows 17 year old Darren as she and her friend Kendall as they look for clues left behind by country legend Decklee Cassel in order to find the lost album and 3 million dollars.

I really enjoyed this book! I liked the relationship between Darren and Kendall as well as the hints we learned about how Decklee made it big back in the 70s. The twists were also crazy! I did not guess a single one of them.

I think Darren knowing what the clues and locations were immediately was a little unrealistic but it made the book fly by and led to all the twists at the end so I enjoyed it.

An absolute love for me! This book had me guessing, heartbroken, and so excited with the new things added into the mystery.

Carla being Mickenlee in the end was such an amazing twist and perfect way to connect the past and present characters.

Character wise: I love seeing the comparisons between Darren and Decklee, seeing the potential and failure in their own respective relationships. Darren learning to appreciate the small life around her and not admire a star blindly is so refreshing and realistic to read!

So… I’m not into country music or treasure hunts. But I kept hearing about this book and since I always want to know whether something is just hype I requested this book. I figured I would give it a chapter or two and come back to it later because I have a bunch of other arcs I’m already reading. Before I knew it I was halfway through and could not put it down. I couldn’t believe how fast I flew through that book. Decklee’s story was so riveting I just wanted more. It connects well to Darren, but Decklee’s life and actions had me thinking about her and her world. The love story and how we see pivotal points in her life felt like I was a fan who right there along side her. This book was awesome and I would tell everyone out there to read it. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

This was such a fun country music, coming of age adventure that kept a smile on my face the entire time.

The book kept a good pace and didn’t feel to drawn out or have many distractions in it. I enjoyed the dueling timelines and the parallels between Decklee & Darren.

While there were no surprises in this book and I could figure out the “mystery” the whole time, it still kept me engaged. I loved the subtle queer narratives especially as it relates to country music and how people have had to live in the shadows.

This book left me wanting a soundtrack from Mickenlee.

A girl who wants nothing but to leave her home town behind to be her openly bisexual self, a boy who gave up a scholarship for a life staying in the town, a quest and a mystery to solve, a past love story to unfold, but more importantly a story about finding yourself and live authentically. Ready Player One meets Daisy Jones & The Six in this hunt for a country musician’s legacy.

This queer coming-of-age story is told in split-POVs and timelines of nowadays Darren Purchase and the 1960s rising country star Decklee Cassel, slowly revealing their queerness, their ambitions and struggle to live an authentic life, during the hunt for Decklee’s heritage via the unfolding of scavenger hunt clues.

It started a bit slow, and I had trouble rooting for both of the main characters (both nowadays Darren and past times Decklee). I completely sympathized with their wish to leave their home town and make something of themselves, but not with the way they walked all over people and didn’t care who they hurt on the way. But the more we got to see the reason behind their decisions and understand what they had to give up to stay true to themselves, they both completely stole my heart. And Kendall and Mickenlee were just total sweethearts who I rooted for immediately!

And the closer Darren and Kendall came to finding the final clues, the more intense and addictive the story got! What started a bit slow and not fully engaging was almost nail biting at the end! And the twist… so worth waiting for is all I’ll say!

I’m so satisfied with the authenticity and the way Jenna Voris kept the characters real with all their flaws. The two main characters were allowed to the strong, complex and ruthless. And the love story was kept real as well, no fairy tale, cheesy, one but very realistic while still completely satisfying.

All in all, this was a heartfelt road trip story about finding your true self, finding love and not letting a small town crush your big dreams, but also not letting your dreams stand in the way for love and happiness.

4.5 stars rounding up to 5.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy for free via NetGalley, but I am leaving my honest review. Many thanks to Penguin Teen and the author for the opportunity!

Queer girls, treasure hunts, and country music? Yeah, this book owns my whole disaster bisexual, country music loving heart.

Voris embodies the heart of country music in this book. At its core, country music is about storytelling, about subverting expectations, about being willing to dream bigger, about longing for home, about losing yourself deeply in every messy, wonderful feeling, about loving and leaving and learning to live with what you've lost. Voris is so smart in the way she crafts this story: she uses dual POVs as well as "flashbacks" to lead us heart-first into character arcs and love stories and a quest for treasure in more ways than one. The result is a page-turner I couldn't put down and finished in a day after sobbing my little heart out multiple times.

As a queer woman, it was hard not to feel so deeply seen throughout parts of this story, and those moments of painful empathy - with Decklee, with Mickenlee, with Darren - healed parts of me that wished I had something like this when I was growing up.

My only lamentation of this book is that the music isn't real, because my god, what I would give to be able to sit down and listen to any and all of it.

[NetGalley was kind enough to provide me with an ARC for this title.]

i loved this book so much!! this was so fun and i'm so thankful that i got to read this one early! thank you so much to netgalley and everyone should pick this up soon!!!

This was an incredible coming-of-age, YA novel. I was left wanting more, and couldn't put it down! Can't wait to read more from this author!

Darren Purchase is a 17-year-old girl obsessed with beloved country star Decklee Cassel. When the time capsule Decklee buried years ago is revealed to be empty on live TV, Darren, along with her coworker Kendall, go on a scavenger hunt in order to find it (not to mention the prize of $3,000,000, which will be Darren's one way ticket out of Mayberry, her dull hometown.) Although Darren started out with the intention of winning the prize money, Darren discovers truths about herself and Decklee that thoroughly shock her.

Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris was a fast-paced, delightful coming of age YA book. I went into the book expecting a fun, lighthearted read, but what I found within the pages, however, was much different. Voris's book asks what it means for a woman to have drive and ambition, even when these qualities will affect other aspects of their life. Throughout the book, Darren must come to terms with both her sexuality and her future, all while nursing a new crush on her coworker, Kendall. However, Darren's story is not told alone. The book easily switches from Darren's perspective to Decklee's as both of these queer women reckon what it means to be from a town of little consequence and live authentically while also achieving success.

Darren and Decklee are complex and messy, but these qualities made me enjoy their stories even more. Even though these two women were similar, Darren becomes deeply attuned to her emotions and the needs of others in a way that unapologetic and sometimes cruel Decklee did not.

I loved this book; I only wish it was a little longer.

gorgeous coming of age book which i was very excited to read, and i would recommend so much. thanks for the arc 4.5

Fairly predictable rom com but it was still a good read that I enjoyed it. It was also a quick read.