I bought Molly Harper's Rhythm &Bluegrass (Pocket Star. Simon &
Shuster digital, $3.79, 180 pages, Kindle edition) thinking it might
have something to do with bluegrass music, which is much of what I
write about. Since I try to get ahold of all books (which I also
review here on my blog) dealing with bluegrass, I thought this one
might be a natural. It turns out that the bluegrass is more about the
name of the state where it is set (Kentucky) than it is about the
music that Bill Monroe created there, although both it and he are
mentioned in this engaging and short romance about a young woman
historical preservationist who comes to Mud Gap Kentucky to save a
once flourishing country music venue and encounters life changing
experiences.
When
Bonnie Turkle travels from her Kentucky Tourism Commission office in
Frankfort, the state capital, to Mud Creek in the East Kentucky
hills, she doesn't fully appreciate that she's making a cultural as
well as physical move. She is making the journey to rescue McBride's
Music Hall, once an important country music and blues venue, but now
fallen into disrepair as Mud Creek has deteriorated with the end of
the tobacco industry and the move of several industries from town. As
she approaches Mud Creek, her car bursts into flame. She escapes, but
the car is destroyed, while a passing motorist puts out the flames
and helps her rescue her computer, but little more. He's a dashing
man who turns out to be both the fire chief and newly appointed mayor
of Mud Creek named Will McBride. He's also the son of the late owner
of the Music Hall, and sees its preservation as a threat to his hope
to attract industry to its site and to eliminate the last vestiges of
a place he sees as a blight on his own life.
The
book progresses through a fairly predictable girl meets boy, girl
gets boy....series of incidents, but is enlivened by the characters
inhabiting the town of Mud Creek, including the spinster librarian,
Will McBride's mother, and an elderly woman who, it turns out, was
the source material for a famous country song called “Lurlene,”
which was written at McBride's and makes the site eminently worth
saving. Bonnie is perky, smart, and likable. Will is handsome, hurt,
and worthy. Perhaps the most interesting underlying idea motivating
the book is the conflict between an outsider coming to town to save
it and its people when the people don't realize they need saving and
don't want to be saved. This conflict between do-gooder from outside
and the native caution and suspicion of local people in rural America
serves as the core for a pretty good story. Oh...and there's a pretty
steamy R rated sex scene in there, too.
Molly Harper
Romances
are not generally my preferred genre, but I found this one engaging
enough to complete reading it without feeling I was wasting my time.
Bonnie is a pleasant person, as is Will McBride. Their growing
relationship is believable and warm. The surrounding characters
represent well rendered stereotypes of small town people who are
suspicious, but likeable and amusing. The resolution is satisfying,
while leaving room for further development if Harper want to continue
with it. For what the book is, I found it enjoyable and diverting. I
particularly liked Harper's use of quick and saucy dialogue to build
her characters. Molly Harper worked for six years as a reporter and
humor columnist for The Paducah Sun. Her reporting duties included
covering courts, school board meetings, quilt shows, and once, the
arrest of a Florida man who faked his suicide by shark attack and
spent the next few months tossing pies at a local pizzeria. Molly
lives in western Kentucky with her family.
Rhythm & Bluegrass by
Molly Harper (Pocket Star. Simon & Shuster digital, $3.79, 180
pages, Kindle edition) provides a quick look into a world many are
not familiar with and makes it real. I enjoyed it more that I thought
I would, and recommend it for readers a little outside the general
run of romance novels. Rhythm &Bluegrass
was provided to me by the publisher as a digital e-galley through
Edelweiss: Beyond the Treeline. I read it on my Kindle.
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