Superstar singer Riley is heading off on tour to perform her latest album of breakup songs inspired by her exes. And one of those is her college boyfriend Max, who runs an aged care home and these days only plays piano for the residents.
Riley wants permission to reveal him as the real inspiration behind her hit track, Until You, which her despised ex-husband has been claiming as his song.
With Taylor Swift about to hit our shores and the hoopla around the Super Bowl, I thought it was the perfect time to pick up this book about a heartbreak songwriting queen.
I was expecting to be drawn into the atmospheric excitement of a concert tour but instead the book, told from the alternating perspectives of Riley and Max, spends most of its time inside their heads as they ruminate endlessly about their relationship and other boring stuff. The end result is a strange mix of overly profound and too cheesy writing, making it likely that me and the author duo are never ever getting back together in future.
Voiceover actor Eliza and lawyer Graham are heading away for a stay at a luxury resort gifted by his parents for their fifth wedding anniversary. But the honeymoon is definitely over and they have drifted apart.
When another guest assumes they are both single and introduces them to one another at a bar, neither correct him. Instead they pretend to be strangers who have just met, in the hope it’ll put a bit of spark into their stay – and help revive their connection.
Told from dual points-of-view, and written by a husband-and-wife team, this story lays bare the decline of marital bliss through miscommunication and insecurities. It’s a clever premise for a “marriage romance”.
Katrina and Nathan wrote a best-selling novel about infidelity together but towards the end, their partnership fell apart. Katrina went on to marry their agent and retire from writing, while Nathan divorced his wife and continued to pen books that never took off.
With his publisher disinterested in his latest idea, Nathan is told his career rests on working with Katrina again. But Katrina is hardly likely to agree, is she?
Written by a real-life couple, this story about a troubled writing partnership had potential but it ended up falling flat. There was nothing wrong with the writing style but the plot was bland and boring, especially because what broke the writing powerhouse up was hardly earth-shattering.
