Lead
Stage Dive Series -Book 3
By Kylie Scott
Synopsis
Stay up all night with the sexy rockers in Stage Dive, the epic New Adult series from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott, author of Lick and Play.
As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it’s booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble.
Lena’s not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.
Excerpt:
“Lena, you seen my old black Led Zep shirt?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?” His brows became one dark cranky line. The scratches on his face were healing well, thank goodness. Though it didn’t reduce my desire to throttle his mother on a daily basis.
“Yes. I haven’t seen it.”
Can’t find it anywhere…”
“And this is a surprise, how?” I slipped my hands into my back jean’s pockets. “Jimmy, you own more clothing than Cher, Brittney, and Elvis, put together. Things are bound to go missing.”
“Sure you haven’t seen it?”
“For goodness sake, what do you think, Jimmy? That I stole it to sleep in or something?” I laughed bitterly. Sure as hell, the truth deserved a good mocking. I’d sunk so despicably low.
I hadn’t even meant to steal the stupid thing, but the shirt had been mixed up with my laundry a few days ago. It’d been the first top I laid my hand on after stepping out of the shower, ready to go to bed. Without thought, I’d put it on and it’d been so soft, the scent of him lingering beneath the laundry detergent. Every night since, I’d found myself in it come bedtime. My shame knew no limits. And no, I still hadn’t quit. The words still hadn’t come even close to leaving my mouth.
He frowned. “No.”
“That I have some deep secret longing to feel close to you resulting in my stealing your shirt like
some creepy perv?”
“Course I don’t fucking think that,” he replied crankily, reaching up to grip the top of the doorframe. All of his bulging muscles stretched the arms of his white T-shirt in the nicest way. It was all I could do not to start drooling, my heart beat taking up residence somewhere down between my thighs. And who could blame it? Not me. Maybe if I got laid, this would go away and things would return to normal. It’d seemed safer to avoid rubbing up against any men just in case I got carried away and started dating again. This new situation, however, changed everything.
“Well, of course not! That would be crazy.” And wasn’t that the god’s honest truth? Cray-zeee. Lock me up and throw away the key because it wasn’t like I didn’t know better.
“Just can’t figure out where the hell it could be.”
Angels couldn’t have smiled as innocently. They might have tried, but they would have failed, the dirty-mouthed, winged, little liars. “Jimmy, I don’t know where it is. But I’ll look around for it later, okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, and then added as an afterthought, “and stop looking at me weird.”
“I’m not!”
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Michel’s Review
OMG…. Kylie Scott has another bestseller! Lead rocked the house down!
Lead is book three in the Stage Dive series and features lead singer Jimmy Farris. He is the egotisical front man for Stage Dive. He adds a new meaning to the phrases “self absorbed”, “self entitled”, “rude”, and “dickhead”. He is a recovering addict in need of a sobriety companion 24/7. Due to his insufferable personality he has run off every single companion the band has hired. They are at wits end until they accidentally meet Lena Morrissey in their manager’s office.
Mal gave me a finger wave. “Lena Morrissey, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I like you. You’re funny.”
“Thanks,” I replied drily.
“So you do admin-type shit here?”
“I did. Yes.”
He gave me an easy smile. “You don’t seem very impressed by me, Lena. Am I not impressive to you?”
“Sure you are. I guess I’m just busy getting fired right now to fully appreciated the magnitude of the moment.” Hands on hip, I looked him in the eye. He was cute and I bet his smile worked on lots and lots of women. But it wouldn’t work on me. “Rest assured, later I’m going to freak out.”
He leaned against the doorframe. “I’ve got your word on that?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m trusting you here.”
“And I appreciate that, Mr. Ericson. I won’t let you down.”
“I really think you could be the one, Lena,” the drummer said, pulling me from my thoughts.
I blinked. “That so?”
“Oh yeah. Big time. But you’re not for me.”
“No?”
“Sadly not.” He shook his head.
“Damn.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re really missing out.” He sighed, slipping his hair behind his ears. Then he looked over his shoulder. “Gentlemen, that problem we were talking about earlier. I believe I may have found a solution.”
David Farris looked from Mal to me and back again; his forehead creasing. “You’re serious?”
“He isn’t easy to live with. Think she can handle it?”
“Yeah, I do,” said Mal, bouncing on the balls of his feet all excited like. He put up his dukes, as if for fighting. “Show me what you got, Lena. Knock me out. Come on champ. You can do it. Put me against the ropes?”
“Mal’s right, she’s different.”
Finally, at long last, Jimmy sighed and looked up at me.
And the man might be pretty, but he sure as hell wasn’t nice. I’d met enough not-nice men to know. Trust me to find him attractive.
So I frowned straight back at him.
His glare went up a notch.
I matched it.
“Why, you two are getting along like a house on fire already! It’s like you’ve known each other for years. I think she’ll make a wonderful live in assistant,” said Mal. “Tell him, Lena.”
“A live in assistant?” I parroted, clueless.
“Since when did I need an assistant?” Jimmy looked me over from top to toe, lips tight with obvious disapproval.
“Since you can’t seem to keep a sobriety companion.” His brother returned calmly, a little coldly even.
And thus begins the story of Jimmy Farris, singer extraordinaire being put in his place and brought into the world of the mere human race.
An epic reading adventure you don’t want to miss.
Jimmy Farris has left a foul impression on the readers throughout this series. It is very hard to like him. It is hard to understand his motivations and actions toward his band brothers. As we all know, don’t judge a book by the cover. Don’t judge, accept.
Lena Morrissey with her quick wit, smart mouth, perceptive mind, and dedicated manner is exactly what Jimmy needs. She accepts his grouchy nature and likes him anyway. When he crosses the line, she puts him in his place. When he needs someone to support him, she has his back no matter what. She sees beyond the outer wrappings Jimmy presents to the world. She sees a man that has been deeply hurt. She sees a man that has lost his sense of self worth. She sees a man that doesn’t know how to reach out to others. She sees a man that doesn’t think he deserves to be loved. As his sobriety companion it is her job to keep him on the straight and narrow. To help him build an iron clad control against the drugs. To direct his self destructive nature in another direction. But is it her job to love him? Will she be able to survive an unrequited love?
“The man was such a show pony, one that I just so happened to be hormonally susceptible to. Blame it all on my girl bits, sure why not?”
“He always seemed so polished, so perfect, you could almost ignore the chaos and pain living inside of him.”
“His smile, oh god his smile, I wanted to wipe it off his face with a pickaxe. I’d be gentle, you could trust me.”
“I’d been in love before, sure. The difference here was, I loved him, all of him, and there’d be no easy getting over it this time. Every part of me wanted him, I yearned for him on the cellular level. There could be no escaping emotions of this magnitude. His good and bad, dark and light, his nice parts and his nasty. Everything he was, I loved, and it left me utterly helpless.”
Jimmy is counting on Lena. She is the only one he can tolerate intruding in his life. He doesn’t want her love. He just needs her to be there and have his back. He will help her get over her crush on him so that she will not quit. He will have her back when she needs it the most. Because after all he is a selfish man, he needs her and that is all there is to it.
“Don’t hate me Lena,” he whispered. “You want to be mad at me when I do dumb things, that’s fine. But don’t ever hate me. I couldn’t take that, not from you.”
Lead is one of this books that is a turbulent ride, a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. It is fun, feisty, witty, sensual, panty dropping sexy, and emotional. The dialogue and banter between Jimmy and Lena is phenomenal.
Kylie Scott is a brilliant writer. She has the reader captivated in the very first line of the book. We are glued to the pages until the very end. She managed to take a very flawed unlikable character and make us fall head over heels in love with him. She gives us strong women that we can admire and respect. She gives the the reader a fun and entertaining book that titillates every emotion.
Lead is a six star book. The Stage Dive series is by far one of the best written series published and has deserved all six star reviews.
The Stage Dive Series:
Lick – Book 1
Waking up in Vegas was never meant to be like this.
Evelyn Thomas’s plans for celebrating her twenty-first birthday in Las Vegas were big. Huge. But she sure never meant to wake up on the bathroom floor with a hangover to rival the black plague, a very attractive half-naked tattooed man in her room, and a diamond on her finger large enough to scare King Kong. Now if she could just remember how it all happened.
One thing is certain, being married to one of the hottest rock stars on the planet is sure to be a wild ride.
Buy: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Play – Book 2
Mal Ericson, drummer for the world famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast—at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn’t plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn’t count on finding the one right girl.
Anne Rollins never thought she’d ever meet the rock god who plastered her teenage bedroom walls—especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones. But being paid to play the pretend girlfriend to a wild life-of-the-party drummer couldn’t end well. No matter how hot he is. Or could it?
Buy: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Lead – Book 3
Stay up all night with the sexy rockers in Stage Dive, the epic New Adult series from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott, author of Lick and Play.
As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it’s booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble.
Lena’s not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.
Buy: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Deep – Book 4 – Coming January 6, 2015
One by one, the members of Stage Dive are falling in love. David, Mal, and Jimmy have all taken the plunge, and now it’s Ben’s turn—only he refuses to fall into that trap. The sexy bassist enjoys his no-strings-attached lifestyle. But when Ben is forced to keep the one girl he’s always had a weakness for out of trouble in Sin City, he quickly learns that what happens in Vegas, doesn’t always stay there.
Author Bio:
Kylie is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and one delightful husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.
Websiite ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Goodreads
Cara McKenna writes contemporary romance and smart erotica, sometimes under the name Meg Maguire, and has sold more than thirty-five novels and novellas to Ellora’s Cave, Penguin, Harlequin Blaze, Samhain, and Signet Eclipse. She’s known for writing no-nonsense, working-class heroes with capable hands and lousy grammar. She was a 2010 Golden Heart finalist, and a two-time Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee. Cara writes full-time and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her own bearded hero.
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