I thought the yearning and the music centered story was everything. I really enjoyed it. The issue for me was actually the hozier of it all. I feel like as I read it it just felt invasive and weird and I feel like sometimes we can take it too far with inspo. The story by itself stood well and I loved the couple.

Reading If Not for My Baby was a wonderful space into a fantasy I have certainly had but never been able to fully articulate. Equal parts heartfelt and sexy, this was a perfect end of summer read. More contemporary romance from Kate Golden please!!

I am all about this setting for the romance - a backup singer and a singer on a tour with a tour bus!! Yes please! The setting made up for the fact that these two characters got together pretty quickly as far as the timing in the book goes. I really liked both of the characters and thought their romance was sweet. The rockstar part was less edgy than other rockstar romances I have read and I appreciated a different approach to it. As someone who reads a lot of romance, my sweet spot is around 350ish pages and t his clocks in at 448 (12 hours on audio) so there were parts that dragged, specifically the ending. That puts it between a 3-4 star for me so I am rounding up at this time.

*Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for the e-ARC! All opinions are my own.*

DNF ~15% due to the excessively specfic Hozier references of it all. I knew this was *inspired* by him. I didn't know it was THIS fanfic-y about him. Super skeevy imo :/

Blog link goes live Sept 14th
Youtube Review up in Weekend Reads from Sept 7th
Amazon and Barnes & Noble Reviews submitted

**TL;DR**: Absolutely not, no thank you. Yikes.
**Source**: NetGalley - Thank you to the publisher!!

**Plot**: An ordinary girl gets picked by plot devices to sing backup for a Hozier fan creation.
**Characters**: I couldn’t stand our female MC and Halloran was just Hozier.
**Setting:** Very little setting was here except the bus, which I did like.
**Romance**: No. I hated this, sorry.
****

**Thoughts:**

I am going to try and keep this short. I dislike everything about the idea behind this. It’s based on Real Person Fanfiction which I find invasive and gross. It’s made almost worse by the fact that the real person in particular is so private, it feels like such a big overstep of boundaries. As fans or even just people on the internet we really need to learn where the boundaries of parasocial are. This steps over those boundaries, even the ones that I feel the artist himself as set.

There could be an argument made for ‘Oh you don’t have to see the fanfiction of it! Just enjoy it for what it is now’. This book does not stand on it’s own without the Hozier knowledge in my opinion. If you even know the basics (which is all I know) about the artist you can see it immediately. From his appearance, to his origins, to the music, and his accent. If you remove any pervious knowledge the romance feels flat and instant. Our main female character is a mess. She doesn’t believe in love, and yet she sees the love and beauty in his lyrics. She is dragging her best friend with benefits along, refusing to see his obvious adoration and abusing that relationship. And poor Halloran/Hozier has so little personality he sees that and thinks “Oh that’s not a red flag”. If we saw a male character do that, we’d be screaming red flag.

While I’m sure this author can write good books, her romantasy series is on my TBR, I this was NOT it. This felt deeply gross, invasive and I disliked it so much. Please for the love of god, let’s stop publishing these obvious fanfictions? I don’t mind if I can’t see the source material! Do better and be better guys. Come on now.

Feels like forever since I've gotten my hands on a truly good rockstar romance and this one made me giddy!

This book follows down on her luck Clementine and her relationship with Hozier stand-in Halloran. Clementine is trying to earn enough money to be able to pay for her disabled mom's medical treatment, and when the opportunity to be a back up singer on tour with a famous singer/songwriter comes along, Clem can't turn it down. Which shouldn't be a problem except Halloran is mysterious, sexy, and Clementine has recently fallen in love with his music.

There really wasn't anything that I disliked about this one. I loved the burn of this romance. Not too slow but definitely not too much too quickly. Clementine gets to know Halloran before anything physical or romantic happens. The forced proximity made for tons of great tension. And the night that Clem gets super drunk and has to be taken care of by Halloran was a particularly high point for me.

This is the kind of book I know younger me would have loved, but older me can still appreciate. Just enough of a self insert fanfic vibe to be satisfying, but without a Mary Jane heroine to irritate me.

Would love to read more books like this in the future from this author. She really does a great job in a contemporary setting.

I love musical romances they are always magical and I really enjoyed this one a lot. But while it was fun and enjoyable while it lasted, it didn’t have anything that truly stood out. I just needed a little more from it.

4⭐️

calling all the rockstar romance lovers, this one is for you! halloran and clementine’s love story truly had me swooning. i loved the journey of feeling like i was also going on tour and experiencing all the things clementine did. and the fact that the mmc was kind of based on hozier?! i was instantly sold 😌 the tension, the forced proximity, the insane chemistry… this was just such a perfect read! i really enjoyed all of the side characters too, they each had their own unique moments and really flowed well into the found family dynamic. i easily flew through this book without even realizing, it was quick paced and just a blast to read.

thank you berkley romance for the gifted ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and to Berkley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

So being completely honest - this book took me over 60% to really get invested. I just didn't care - and really didn't even truly ever connect with the book.

Tom & Clem just had no chemistry; I would have liked to see their romance bloom outside of just being on the tour! It was a bit hard to really believe (for me) with nothing outside!

That being said - I LOVED Tom's character and the musical element to the entire book was by far my absolute favorite!

*Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review and to PRH Audio for a gifted ALC*

I'll be honest... I couldn't get over the fact that this was Hozier fanfiction. For some, that might be a huge selling point. For me, I would've preferred it was less obvious. But who am I to deny the world a hot 6'6" Irishman?

I enjoyed the audio performance, especially the male narrator. The Irish accent was absolutely on point! Super smooth and sultry. However I felt like the plot was a bit underdeveloped and I didn't really *like* the FMC. She kept making strange decisions that didn't really further her goals and was super insecure despite people constantly validating her. But it did make me listen to the Hozier concert playlist trying to find parallels to songs in the book which was a great time.

While this definitely leaned a little too close to Hozier fan fiction at times, I still found myself enjoying it. The writing had a sweet, lyrical quality, and the yearning between the characters was beautifully done. That said, there were moments when their relationship didn’t quite feel believable, and a few scenes veered into the cheesy side of romance tropes. Still, it was entertaining from start to finish, and if you’re a fan of rockstar romances, with all the intensity, poetry, and drama they bring, I’d say this one is worth picking up.

I have read Kate's books in the past so I was excited to read something different from her. This story is about Halloran, a famous singer and our FMC comes on tour to be his backup singer. Since the beginning, the tension in there between them. Seeing them so close on stage and try to avoid each other off stage was !!! The breaking point was oh so sweet

This book made me ball! I absolutely did not believe that I would love this book so much. I really enjoy a rockstar Romance with a normal every day person and this book gave me all the feels. I have come to want from that genre of book. Tom and Clementine were an epic couple. Tom has got to be one of the sweetest male characters. I have read this year. You couldn’t help but swoon for the rockstar. I started to think toward the end that I was not going to get my happily ever after… Boy was I wrong! Love this book infinity stars!⭐️

I had pretty high hopes for If Not For My Baby. Rockstar Romance is one of my absolute FAVORITE tropes, especially when it’s coupled with Found Family and any sort of Disability or Chronic Illness Representation.

Unfortunately the premise is the only thing that gained this book it’s 2-star rating from me. The writing felt awkward, character development of the MMC was almost non-existent, and it felt kind of lazy?

This is my favorite rockstar romance. Everything about it was stunning. I would not change a single thing about it. There is raw chemistry living inside this book and I need everyone to experience it.

It’s was fine. Not my fav. Too similar to real life musicians for me and made me feel weird. Not sure if the writing was for me.

I really enjoyed this one! As an avid Hozier fan, it followed him a bit too closely. I have found that I enjoy these fan fics when they’re sort of loosely based, not almost an exact replica of the person. Otherwise, I really liked the story. Didn’t love that Clem’s bff basically just vanished from the story? But otherwise, I liked it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, I really enjoyed this one. When I started it, I thought surely it won't be as good as the cover art makes it seem. I've been let down before with a book and its gorgeous cover. But this one was stellar.

No one can convince me that this wasn't Hozier fanfiction. Come on. Irish folk rock singer with luscious long hair who sings about nature and love and the human experience? I'm not mad about it. But no one is going to convince me that Hozier didn't inspire this author when creating Halloran. Another coincidence! Hozier, Halloran. See?

All in all this was a good romcom. The third act break up was believable and full of angst. I liked that everything was tied up neatly with no questions left unanswered. I will definitely be recommending this one.

Thank you to Kate Golden for reigniting my Hozier addiction! I haven't stopped thinking about this book since I finished it a week ago. Tom and Clem's chemistry was off the charts, and the YEARNING from Tom was too good. I loved all the side characters as well, they were entertaining and interesting. My only note, character-wise, is that Clem could be a little cringe/odd at times. I found myself getting second-hand embarrassment a few times from her. But that went away by the end of the book and I loved the conclusion so much.

If Not for My Baby brought something fresh and new to the romance book genre. The tropes and plot were unique and addicting. It was romantic, adventurous, and reflective. Lighthearted while still discussing deep and difficult topics. I think every romance reader is going to appreciate this refreshing take on a rockstar romance.

Thank you so much to Berkley, NetGalley, and Kate Golden for the ARC! I adored If Not for My Baby and I can't wait for (hopefully) more contemporary romances from Kate!

This was fine, I mean I enjoyed it but I do agree with what one character said: ''it's just a fling'' because I did not believe a single bit of this romance beyond the tour-close proximity-ness of it. It just felt very power imbalanced and I hero-worshipp-y. I think you have to love Hozier to really love this and I just don't. He's fine but I am not feral over him