Louder than Love, By Jessica Topper

In this powerful debut novel, a young librarian grieves the loss of her husband...and discovers a love that defies classification.

It's been over three years since a train accident made a widow of Katrina Lewis, sending her and her young daughter Abbey back to the suburban town of her youth...the only place that still makes sense. Lauder Lake is the perfect place to hide and heal.

Recluse rocker Adrian "Digger" Graves survived the implosion of his music career, but his muse has long lain dormant. Until Kat hires him to play at her library—not on the basis of his hard rock credentials but rather, because of the obscure kids' TV jingle he wrote years ago. In a case of mistaken identity, Adrian stumbles into the lives of Kat and her comically lovable daughter.

Using tattoos as a timeline, Adrian unfurls his life for Kat. But as the courtship intensifies, it's unclear whose past looms larger: the widow's or the rocker's. Will their demons ever rest, or will they break these soul mates apart? 

A rock and roll story that doesn't circle around the rock and roll? Heck yeah I signed up to review that book! Don't get me wrong, I love the rockstar as much as the next one, but at some point it just gets kinda 'blah'. So when reading a story that doesn't have to do with the concert tours and everything comes out for reviewing, it was worth it to me to read it.


Things I DID enjoy about this book:

• The fact that Katrina is an older woman who has actually been through life, she isn't a young virgin who has never been through anything.
  
• The fact that it wasn't an “instant love” story. They both had their own hurdles to overcome before they accepted the attraction between them.
  
• Adrian has his past, and the fact that the past was kept hidden for just the right amount of time.
  
• Abbey's character was the perfect amount of comic relief. She was in the story enough that you didn't forget about her, but she was “out” of the story enough that you could follow the story between the adults.
  

Things I DID NOT enjoy about this book:

• I didn't like how quickly Adrian's character switched after his secret was out. It seemed like he became a completely different person.
  
• How easily Katrina forgave Adrian after what he did. I think it should have been a little bit more from Katrina because of what Adrian put her through.
  
• There were some parts of the book that seemed to drag on a little bit, and other's that went by really quickly. I think it would have worked better if there had been 1 steady speed.
  

All in all, this was a pretty good read and I would recommend it to my friends!

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