Abandon All Hope by M.J. Schiller

 It was one of those mornings for newspaper-writer/photographer Hope Creswell. The alarm clock didn’t go off and she cut her finger on broken glass. Not one to let such things get her down, Hope headed into her assignment meeting with excitement, only to leave it stunned. Her new assignment is to trail the sensational rock-star, Chase Hatton, for an article. Chase Hatton! No one knows the power that name holds for her. No one knows of the childhood friendship that blossomed into romance, only to abruptly die on the night of Hope’s senior prom. No one knows of the ache that still fills her heart.

What starts out for Chase Hatton as an average publicity trip to Chicago suddenly becomes complicated when his manager tells him that Hope Creswell will be interviewing him in the morning. He had spent eight years trying to forget Hope, and now she would be in his penthouse in a matter of hours?

When Chase opens the door to his penthouse and finds Hope on the opposite side, his heart begins beating a rhythm the rocker has yet to capture in any of his music. The smoldering embers of their former romance are fanned by their mere proximity. Will they both be burned again? Can Hope ever trust her heart to Chase after what he did? Can Chase bear to see her walk out on him a second time? And what about Hope’s boyfriend, Phillip? Where does he fit into the picture that Hope is developing?

Hope is having a rough day, and to top it all off she’s now facing a reunion with a man who broke her heart years before.  A man that now happens to be a deliciously hot rock star.  This is good for her career, but her heart not so much.  Chase, for his part, has tried hard to forget Hope as well.  And when they are brought together they realize their flames for each other never really died.  Will they give into the flames of their connection?

I will say right off the bat that this book had a very similar plot to a few other rock star books I’ve read over the last couple of years, and that bothered me.  Don’t get me wrong, they’re different stories but the major plot points just seemed stunningly unoriginal for me.   This means that this book was going to have to be stellar to stand out for me.  I’m sorry to say that while I enjoyed aspects of this book, it really didn’t stand out all that much for me.

Besides the familiar plot, I really didn’t feel the connection between Hope and Chase.  I want to feel the burn, the longing and the passion and it really just wasn’t there for me.  The book is told from alternating points of view and at points I found that to be confusing instead of helpful. 

I think this book was written reasonably well, but there were points that went entirely too fast for my taste.  I had a hard time understanding  at some points what was happening and actually had to go back because the scene had jumped from one thing to another so quickly. 

Overall, this book was just ok to me.  It had problems but overall, I’m not sure with the plot being so overdone it was something that I would have enjoyed.  Not a bad book, but not one that will stick out to me in the future.  3 stars.

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