Hiding In The Spotlight by Karen Booth

Hiding In The Spotlight
by Karen Booth
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
If you're looking for a fast-paced, poignant story of second chances, here's a great book for you. On the one hand, I was hesitant to read this book because I'm normally so-so about the celebrity angles. But at the same time, bands and music pushed me over the edge to give it a try. This story was about a past-their-fame band who might get a second chance; just as one marriage was breaking up and making way for a different kind of second chance.

Alex's marriage to Glenn was pretty much over since it got started 13+ years ago. She stayed with jim for the kids' sake and because she thought so little of herself. But when Glenn took off again, she was finally ready to get angry. She took charge for a little while and made some decisions for herself. She moved on and slowly found that life was bigger than she thought – or at least, she didn't have to settle for Glenn because he was the only one attracted to her.

The relationship between David and Alex developed during the divorce proceedings and I did have some awkward feelings about a new romance happening while one character was still married. But things between Glenn and Alex had been over for a long time and there was no chance of them getting back together. I love, love, loved the emotional connection between David and Alex. They were believable and sweet and gave me lots of good feelings. This was a non-explicit, almost closed-door book, but the attraction and tension was top notch.

Alex was the heroine that didn't rock the boat. She made a couple decisions but then really left everything else up to others. I didn't feel like she took control or “found herself” in the story; she found a relationship that was worth having, but I didn't think she grew out of her dependent tendencies. She didn't treat herself like she was worth much and she tended to give control over to the men in her life. I could relate to her, but there were a bunch of times I wanted to slap her and tell her to stop being a doormat.

David was a typical nice guy. I liked him. He was great family-man material and like some of the best romance movies, he held a flame for Alex through all these years (although, also like some movies, he sowed his wild oats in between that flame). He wasn't afraid of a relationship and he didn't need to be hit over the head to see what was in front of him. There were places where both David and Glenn veered to the sexist, women-as-possessions mentality. It fit with how Alex looked at herself, but I really wished someone (like Alex) would have smacked them both instead of brushing it off that since David cared about Alex it was ok for him to be possessive.

Now, the part that bothered me was the lack of honesty throughout the book. If I understood the timeline correctly, the book happened over the course of months. With Glenn being gone and Alex filing for divorce, she didn't tell the kids anything. Her teenager was all angsty and nasty to her and she still didn't say anything or stand up for herself. Her and David tried to hide their relationship from everyone as well. I understood where they were coming from and it did add tension, but I wanted to yell at them every time they brushed someone off and kept quiet instead of just being honest.

There was quite a lot of telling versus showing in the story. We'd get a really great tension filled scene, someone would make a statement about doing something awesome and then the scene would end. We'd get an update of what happened right after that, but the timeline would jump by days or weeks at a page turn. It wasn't as frustrating as it could have been, but a lot of character development happened off-screen.

All that to say, the relationship tension was awesome and broke me out of a reading slump. I had trouble putting the book down and finished in record time. But I had hoped for a little more girl-power. And with the number of events happening, I didn't feel there was enough connection to the characters' growth to make me care about their lives outside the romance.

I received a complementary ARC from the author in exchange for my honest review.

**This review is archived on my blog: The Theory of Lieto Fine