It’s #WhatToReadWednesday time, and did you know that it’s World Day of Music today? I hardly ever read rockstar books, or books about musicians at all, but…
I might be imagining it, but I’m seeing more and more rockstar stories around, so I think it might be a trope on the way up?? Anyway here are some old ones (because it’s been years since I read a rockstar book 😁)
Heaven by Jet Mykles
Have you read the Heaven Sent series or the Indigo Knight series? They’re all very… Jet Mykles. Quick and easy, and I think most of them are gay for you. I think it’s fifteen years since I read them.
The Weiss Strande Hotel is in trouble. Business just isn’t what it used to be when Tyler’s father ran the family-owned hotel. On top of business being down, Dad’s now sick with cancer so bills have skyrocketed. Desperate to save his family livelihood, Tyler sinks his hopes and money into a new venture: a nightclub at the hotel. It’s imperative that the White Room is a success, or else the hotel will go under. Lady Luck seems to be with them, however, because they manage to sign the mega-popular rock group Heaven Sent to play the grand opening.
Already a huge fan of the group, Tyler couldn’t be more excited to welcome them to his hotel. He’s not at all prepared for the bomb of lust that hits him when he’s finally face-to-face with the painfully gorgeous lead singer, Johnnie Heaven. No, it couldn’t be lust. Yes, Johnnie’s probably the most beautiful person he’s ever seen, but Tyler is straight! It must be a misguided form of hero worship that he’s feeling.
Tyler finds out that he and Johnnie share an obsession: video games. When Johnnie invites Tyler to his room to play, Tyler jumps at the chance. Who wouldn’t snap up the opportunity to spend time with their idol?
He and Johnnie have a great time with the games, but Tyler soon discovers that Johnnie’s got more in mind. The rock star’s aims to introduce Tyler to a whole new level of game play.
https://books2read.com/HeavenMykles
Every Move He Makes by Barbara Elsborg
It’s a few years since I read this too, but I was surprised by how much I liked it, so every time I see it now, I smile. More crime/mystery than rockstar perhaps, but one of the guys is a rockstar.
Keeping an eye on his charge isn’t easy. Keeping his hands off? Impossible…
It took attending his own funeral to force Logan to accept a new life as an undercover MI6 agent. That doesn’t make his latest assignment any less aggravating. Babysitting a Russian pop star with delusions that someone’s trying to kill him. Other than an inexplicable attraction Logan ruthlessly suppresses, he couldn’t have less in common with the irritating, arrogant rich kid. He’s even prepared to walk away-until very real bullets start flying.
After his mother’s death, Zak Kochenkov’s life unravels in an impenetrable haze of grief, drugs and alcohol-until one bodyguard candidate stands out. Except his hopes of having some fun with that guard’s body evaporate when he realizes Logan is buttoned up tighter than a clam. The first thing Logan learns is that his charge won’t do as he’s told. And there’s some secret behind his haunted eyes that shakes Logan’s resolve to keep him at arm’s length. Because he knows if he lets passion close his eyes, that’s when danger will find them both…
Warning: Contains a sexy bodyguard with a tortured past, and a spoiled rock star with a tortured conscience. Stir (don’t shake), and prepare for spontaneous combustion
https://books2read.com/EveryMoveHeMakes
Guarding January by Sean Michael
When I started this list, I was spending quite some time trying to remember that vampire rockstar story…this is it. This is the vampire rockstar story 😆
Lord January is at the top of the charts, only comes out at night, and is usually covered in blood. Say what you will, but the man knows how to put on a great show. But when the Vampire King is let out of rehab, the last thing he expects is someone forcing him to eat real food, hang out in the sun, and generally be a human being.
Rye Sommers, the best bodyguard in the business, has been hired to babysit a rock star whose biggest threat surprisingly isn’t all the hard drugs, desperate groupies, and crazy fans—it’s Lord January himself. But the closer Rye gets, the more LJ turns into sweet, gentle, caring Jeff Smart. He may still be the super-skinny, pierced and inked genius Lord January, but he is slowly shaking his death wish as he sheds the loneliness and exhaustion his stage persona saddled him with.
But as Rye falls in love with the real Jeff, he finds himself in over his head. He knows he can keep Lord January away from the drugs and the groupies, but saving Jeff might force Jeff to choose between his career as Lord January and his very life.
https://books2read.com/Guarding-January
The Missing Butterfly by Megan Derr
Aww, this is cute.
Cassidy Monarch had dreams—to sing, to be famous, to tour the world at the head of his own rock band. Then his parents were killed in a tragic accident, leaving him to raise his two siblings. Determined to hold on to what remained of his family, Cassidy settled into an ordinary life, his dreams of fame reduced to occasional nights of singing at karaoke dives. But his careful, ordinary life began to fray with his new job, and the beautiful, charming boss who reminds him of all the things he tried to stop wanting.
Malcolm Osborne is a classic rags to riches story, a foster child who wound up with the perfect family and more money than he knows what to do with. He’s wealthy, beautiful, successful, and completely miserable. Then he hires a new worker for his office, a young, hard-working man with a sadness in his eyes that Malcolm aches to banish, hoping that in doing so he will be rid of his own loneliness as well.
https://books2read.com/The-Missing-Butterfly
Moonlight Becomes You by Piper Vaughn and M.J. O’Shea
I should reread this series. I remember liking it, though I liked book two better than the first, but better start from the beginning 😊
Can’t forget the boy he left behind. Can’t seem to win the respect of the man he’s crazy about. Shane Ventura might be rich and famous… but his love life is a disaster waiting to happen.
Eleven years ago, Shane Ventura made the biggest mistake of his life.
He caved in to pressure from his record label to kick his best friend, Jesse Seider, out of their band, Luck. To this day, Shane has never wanted anyone more. All the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll can’t fill the void Jesse left behind. Not even the prospect of teaming up with Britain’s hottest band, Moonlight, for a massive world tour can get him out of his funk.
Then he meets singer Kayden Berlin and falls into Instant lust.
Kayden may act like he’s not interested but Shane knows he feels the spark between them. Yet the harder Shane pushes, the more Kayden pulls away, until on explosive night leaves Shane with a broken heart.
That seems to be his lot in — lucky at everything but love.
Shane still has one lesson left to learn: when it comes to love, you can’t always leave things to chance.
https://books2read.com/moonlight-becomes-you-Oshea
And that’s about it. I know I’ve read more, but I can’t really remember them. Oh, and I have one, though it’s more of an after-the-rockstar-career story LOL
The Drunken Dog
Zev Nightfall has a secret. For two years, he’s been the beta in a loosely knitted werewolf pack, but he’s not a werewolf. He’s a crossbreed, part wolf, part fae, which is a death sentence in most packs. That’s not his only problem. One night he meets Otis, a vampire. Shifters and vampires aren’t friends, yet fighting is the last thing on Zev’s mind.
Otis Miller is in the middle of rebuilding his rockstar persona. Again. A hundred years ago, all he had to do was to move when people started noticing him not ageing. With cameras and social media, it doesn’t work anymore, and he isn’t sure he has the energy to start over. Then there is the shifter coming to the bar where he’s singing. He makes Otis want to jump off the stage and never look back.
Zev knows he shouldn’t get involved with a vampire; he has enough problems as it is. But Otis is alone and vulnerable, and it tugs at Zev’s heartstrings. Normally, Otis stays away from other supernatural beings, but something about Zev makes him want to curl up on his lap and forget about the world around them. But how would two people from enemy species make things work, and will Zev’s pack ever accept not only a crossbreed but a vampire as well?
Choose your weapons.
I work for Lucifer. Only, it’s not as cool and satanic as it sounds.
Riley Aylworth’s life has been completely devoid of intimate contact since a fire three years ago left him with horrific facial scarring, so when he finds an ad for a phone sex service, he decides to give it a call. Except that the number is not a phone sex service—it’s the revenge Cameron Kirkwood’s ex-boyfriend took on the uptight advertising executive after Cam forgot their anniversary and accidentally put him in the hospital. Needless to say, after thirty-nine disturbing calls seeking phone sex, Cameron is at the end of his tether and yells at his fortieth caller. What he doesn’t expect is for Riley to hit redial and yell right back.
Daddy just took on a whole new meaning…
It started as a simple assignment for Aussie bush guide Dave Taylor – escort a lone Englishman in quest of an unknown species of butterfly. However, Nicholas Goring is no ordinary tourist, his search is far from straightforward, and it’s starting to look as if the butterflies don’t want to be found. As Dave teaches Nicholas everything he needs to survive in the Outback he discovers that he too has quite a bit to learn – and that very often the best way to locate something really important is just not to want to find it…
James Killian learns the hard way that sometimes smaller towns can be full of bigots. When he comes out to his father he is not only kicked out of his home but off the Quadruple J where he works as the ranch foreman. With nowhere to go and little money, his savior comes in the unlikely form of his older brother’s best friend, the man he’s been in love with for over half his life.
New York City FBI team leader Samuel Shaughnessy lives for his immediate family and his job. After a marriage gone wrong, he has stuck to a firm rule when it comes to relationships: he doesn’t have them. Sexually active and emotionally unavailable keeps him satisfied, especially now that he is in hot pursuit of a serial killer targeting gay men.
Samuel Briggs moved to small-town Stratton, Pennsylvania, to escape his tragic past and try to start over. When he’s not out walking his beat as a police officer, all he wants is peace, a manageable routine, and time to fix up his newly-purchased project home. And Samuel absolutely does not have room in his new routines for a relationship. Except a chance encounter with a handsome diner cook unexpectedly shakes his resolve.
Daniel Whitlock is terrified of going to sleep. And rightly so: he sleepwalks, with no awareness or memory of his actions. Including burning down Kenny Cooper’s house — with Kenny inside it — after Kenny brutally beat him for being gay. Back in the tiny town of Logan after serving his prison sentence, Daniel isolates himself in a cabin in the woods and chains himself to his bed at night.
When alcohol and fierce tempers land two cowboys from the rodeo circuit under house arrest, it may be time to Let It Go.
The Great North, Quebec, 1934. Joe Vega, the Beast, has been locked up in Linhart Prison for three years. The brutish guards harass him because of his size, but Joe remains cool.
I kept tripping over my feet, tripping over my words, and eventually gave up talking all together. You continued to smile anyway.
Lie back and think of England…
Daniel Mulligan is tough, snarky, and tattooed, hiding his self-consciousness behind sarcasm. Daniel has never fit in—not at home in Philadelphia with his auto mechanic father and brothers, and not at school where his Ivy League classmates looked down on him. Now, Daniel’s relieved to have a job at a small college in Holiday, Northern Michigan, but he’s a city boy through and through, and it’s clear that this small town is one more place he won’t fit in.
Ofelia Grand 