Narrated by Justine O’Keef

Myrna Evans, a professor in human sexuality, is at a conference when she spies her favorite band, Sinners, in the lounge bar of her hotel. Brian “Master” Sinclair is the lead guitarist and Myrna uses his riffs in her lectures to describe male sensuality. She introduces herself to the band and each member seems to be attracted to her and willing to show her a good time, but it is Brian Myrna wants. This comes as a particular surprise to lead singer Sed Lionheart who has heretofore been the babe magnet of the band. Eric Sticks, the drummer, takes the rejection good naturedly, as do Trey and Jace (the other guitarists). Brian is drunk, having drowned his sorrows at a loss of yet another girl to Sed’s charms. The other band members tell Myrna that Brian is a romantic, falls hard and fast, and gets his heart broken regularly. Apparently Sed had seduced the previous girlfriend in an attempt to show Brian that she was no good for him.

It is not at all long before Myrna and Brian are scorching the sheets. And I do mean scorching. Erotic romances sound so much more dirty on audio and this one is among the dirtiest the genre has to offer I think. I mean that in a sex positive way but there is a LOT of sex. It is frequent, explicit and, er… interesting.

Brian is the main music writer for the band, with Sed being the lyricist. But Brian’s muse has been absent. When he hooks up with Myrna, he literally hears music as he’s having sex with her and the first morning they are in bed together, he writes music on her body (yes, this really happens). He takes her to the band’s hotel suite to transcribe the music and play it with Trey. So, we have the odd situation where Myrna is standing in front of the entire band naked except for a pair of panties while the guys are playing the notes written on her body. It was kind of hilarious actually.

Myrna is relationship-shy and despite Brian’s oft-repeated suggestion that they run away to Vegas and get married, she wants a no strings affair. She doesn’t think their careers will mix and there’s the fact that she is seven years his senior and very risk averse. Of the pair, it is Brian who is in touch with his feelings while Myrna’s past makes her want to keep things surface level and physical only.

However, when other funding is cut, Myrna’s last resort is a grant to study band groupies. She ends up touring with Sinners and exploring a relationship with Brian almost in spite of herself, while undertaking her research. There is also a suspense subplot, which felt kind of unnecessary, the nature of which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

It did feel a little like Myrna’s fear of love went on too long and by the end, it seemed more like it served the plot rather than being anything organic to Myrna’s character. Brian had proved himself to her time and time again and he was clearly deeply in love with her.

Backstage Pass is over-the-top and funny and made me blush (a lot) but I really enjoyed it. There’s a strong connection between Brian and Myrna that goes beyond sex. I did have to wonder if she needed to be on permanent antibiotics and get some special anti-chafing lotion as she and Brian have sex for hours and hours and hours, especially when he’s writing music, and VERY regularly.

Justine O’Keef narrates. I first heard her narrate The Proposition and The Proposal by Katie Ashley. At the time, I felt the material let her down and hoped to hear more of her work. I must say that the first chapter or so of Backstage Pass was a little difficult to settle into because I could hear The Proposition in my head – it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.  However, once I settled into this story, I relaxed and began to enjoy the narration and the hijinks of Sinners on Tour.

There are only fairly subtle differences between the various band members but by the end of the book, I was able to tell fairly easily who was talking; their characters felt so distinct to me. A couple of times the wrong character voice was used but for the most part, the production quality was very good.

At times Sed sings which sounds weird to my ears on audio – I think I prefer for those words to be spoken. But this is a very difficult issue – I’m not sure a narrator can win here. If the narrator can’t sing well, it is better to speak only, but that’s my opinion and YMMV.

The screams of fans and the like felt uncomfortable to my ears and some of the sex talk (moans, screams, etc) was… not sexy. Delivering an explicit erotic scene vocally (and not making it a caricature) is quite a task as it can move into unintentionally funny territory very quickly. On the other hand, there are parts of the book which are so over the top, that they had to have been intentionally funny and Ms. O’Keef played it up for the best effect.

I surprised myself by enjoying Backstage Pass – once I realized that it was not terribly serious, I went with the OTT-ness of it all. But on a sensuality scale of 1-10 (in the immortal words of Spinal Tap) this is an 11 – you have been warned.

Kaetrin