Even before COVID-19, I worked at home. I’d get the kids ready and to school, wave my husband off to work, walk the dog and then settle down with my laptop. Many days, around ten, I’d realize the silence was bumming me out, and I’d turn on tunes. For me, music is a basic mental health need. Every day, I listen to at least an hour, from all genres and eras. I sing in the shower, the kitchen, and while exercising. For me, musicians are akin to benevolent gods.
And yet, I haven’t read that many romances I love that feature them as leads. Caz pulled together a great post on musician based romances a few years ago and I’ve read some of some of the ones she listed: VIP series, the Rock Kiss series, the Stage Dive series, and the Rock Star series. None of them have stayed with me.
My favorite book featuring a musician is Jenny Holiday’s Famous which I adore past all reason. (It helps I think Taylor is the Madonna of our era.)
What’s yours? And why?
Impenitent social media enthusiast. Relational trend spotter. Enjoys both carpe diem and the fish of the day.
I love Famous and Infamous by Jenny Holiday – and you can be sufficiently jealous Dabney that I have signed copies of both from when I met Jenny for lunch a few years in 2018!
I have a signed copy of Famous. I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with Jenny several times–and her lovely lovely dad. She’s one of the nicest people in romance!
Oh I didn’t know that! That’s so nice!
She is really a gem.
Ann Lister writes mm rock music romance. Some better than others.
I also loved Twisted Wishes trilogy by Anna Zabo
Unless I’m misremembering, the heroine of Beard Necessities by Penny Reid is a country music singer.
The fiction about musicians that I first thought of for this question isn’t genre romance, but includes romantic elements. There are a number of stories about musicians, especially Marla Lindler (sp?), an extremely talented up-timer, set in the 1632 universe.
I have to vote for the Cake series by J. Bengtsson. The four books in the contemporary romance series surround a rock star with a terrible childhood trauma. The trauma is a background for the entire series, but the author infuses all four books with humor and joy. Loved the series and looking forward to future books.
Music has always been a very important thing in my life. I have a lot of trouble processing emotions, and music has helped me a lot with that. I’d have never traveled nearly as widely as I have if it wasn’t for my passion for live music, because traveling has always been difficult and exhausting for me, but living in a small country, traveling to another country has often been the only way to hear certain bands and artists play live. I have a hard time connecting with people and yet I have found friends and a long-term partner through shared taste in music. Music has helped me through hard times, and soundtracked many of the best. I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been like without music.
However, I haven’t had the easiest time finding the type of romance novels featuring musicians that I could really connect with. I think my biggest problem has been that I’ve felt like quite often the books haven’t actually even been so much about music and musicianship. They’ve centered more on one or several of the following: Looking and acting the part (a very superficial interpretation of what musicianship is about), tired old rock cliches, and over-the-top drama often with a generous dose of excessive internal lusting and/or debilitating reactions to a musician’s hotness. It is naturally possible that I’ve just been unlucky with my book choices, but I don’t think it’d be terribly foolish to wish for more books that focused on the creative process of making music, the significance of music to those performing and creating it, those special performances when the stars align for a reason or another and something potentially great turns into something absolutely magical – stuff like that.
I, too, enjoyed Famous by Jenny Holiday and Rise by Karina Bliss, both of which have been mentioned several times. Here are a few more I liked a lot. All of them worked for me in general, and also they all had something special going on that elevated them above the musician romances I didn’t care so much for.
Good Time Bad Boy by Sonya Clark. Mag and nblibgirl already mentioned this, and I couldn’t agree more with them. It’s a character driven romance on the quieter side, has a lovely redemption story where no one gets turned into a completely different person, with some nice contemplation on a creative block, and losing the joy of music and then finding it again.
Not Another Rock Star by Amber Belldene has an Episcopal priest heroine, Suzannah, with a short career as a B-list opera singer in her past, and a rock musician hero, Rush, through whose situation the book deals with what music and creating it means to musicians, what it means to be a part of a band, and what it would mean for a musician to lose music due to loss of hearing. It also discusses experimenting with new ways to use one’s voice with respect to Suze’s character.
Inside Track by Tamsen Parker. I got interested in this book not because of the music theme but because the hero Nick, who is a musician, has ADHD like me. The heroine Dempsey is agoraphobic (and awesome besides), and I ended up enjoying the book not so much because of anything music related – although nothing about it bothered me either, so that’s a bonus – but because of the mental health and neurodiversity representation, plus I just loved Nick and Dempsey so much. It does discuss the issues someone living in the public eye while struggling with problems stemming from ADHD might face, which I appreciated.
Going Deep by Anne Calhoun. This is a musician/bodyguard romance with a suspense element. It deals with the process of writing music, pressures of the music industry and scary side effects of fame. I re-read this once a year, and I rarely re-read books. I love it dearly.
My Christmas Number One by Leonie Mack has a Colombian hero and heroine from the UK, both musicians with vastly different music styles collaborating on a Christmas single. It features wonderful portrayals of live performances, and deals with the process of making music, the significance of music to musicians, and navigating the life of a performing musician with a growing audience as someone with mental health problems and a physical disability.
I’ve written down so many titles to look into! Thanks everyone – I’m so happy and grateful for all the recommendations!
I’d forgotten about Going Deep. I liked that as well as the series it’s in. Thanks for the reminder!
My pleasure. :)
I love the whole series, and my re-read always includes Under the Surface and Turn Me Loose as well. Going Deep is just my favorite of the three full length novels in the series.
It’s such an interesting thought to me that what one can recognize as the best and what one’s personal favorite is don’t always go hand in hand. If someone was to ask for my opinion on Calhoun’s best book, I don’t think my answer would be any of the Alpha Ops books, as excellent as I find them. And yet they are the ones I keep reading over and over again. I guess they are also my comfort reads even though I can’t re-read them nearly as often as I like to, thanks to my concentration problems.
I have a couple of Calhoun books that are still unread and that’s one of them. I should fix that.
She so SO missed.
yes, I really miss her and Cara McKenna
And Anne Mallory and Meredith Duran. Sighs….
On the topic of musicians losing their hearing, there’s a recent movie, “Sound of Metal” starring Riz Ahmed, which is about exactly that. It got good reviews, and he’s up for a Golden Globe.
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2477703449?playlistId=tt5363618&ref_=tt_ov_vi
Thank you so much for informing us about this movie – it looks fantastic! I’m so out of the loop with everything these days that I keep missing stuff that I really wouldn’t want to miss.
Sound of Metal seems to be currently showing in movie theatres in my country, but there’s the whole COVID situation plus I can’t sit long enough anymore to go to movies, so I’m going to have to wait for it to be released on bluray or show up on Netflix. I’ve always sucked at patience, but then again, it is nice to have something exciting to look forward to.
I watched the trailer. It looks great.
I thought so too. I also found a couple of clips from the movie on YouTube, which looked good. Plus I really liked The Place Beyond The Pines, another Marder/Cianfrance collaboration.
It’s nice that there’s a music movie with a bit different approach to the subject for once, and I think it is not only interesting but also important that it got made. I think the theme of the movie is universally relatable, whether or not you have gone through something like the male protagonist of the movie, Ruben, does, like losing a sense or the ability to move due to illness or accident, or have experienced some other type of devastation that has forced you to ask yourself: How do I live on after this? I think most people can easily find something or someone the loss of which or whom could land them in the same place as Ruben in the movie.
So I have high hopes for The Sound of Metal and am interested in it as a music fan, movie fan, someone who is physically disabled due to illness, and just as an individual, I guess, who’s drawn to stories that make one think. Here’s hoping it’s good.
Thinking about music in books I remembered one outstanding book:
Sharon Shinn’s Archangel (and other books in that universe) is about singers. I loved Archangel, it was a very special love story and a special fantasy /SF. Other books are good fantasies, less romance, Archangel is magnificent, and I read it as a romance, or a strong romantic focus in a fantasy.
I liked Singh’s Rock Kiss books, and Karina Bliss’ books starting with Rise, too, but I find them generally less memorable – the Superstar world does not appeal to me so much, for a variety of reasons. Will try Famous.
This makes me think of Michelle Diener’s Class 5 books. The human characters aren’t musicians per se, but their ability to sing in a world where music is revered and “doled out” only on special occasions was such an interesting thought experiment. As someone who is completely non-musical (can’t carry a tune, can’t keep time, can barely remember lyrics), I could so relate.
I loved the music aspect in the Class 5 series, especially how it was so important to the other race (Grih? Now I can’t remember how it’s spelled). For weeks after I read them I thought about the songs and author chose and which songs I would have chosen to put in the story.
I’m not really into rock star romances, but I do love it when books and music actually connect in a story.
Although I love music and can’t imagine living one day without it, I don’t usually bring music to my romance readings. I didn’t remember one novel with musicians until I read your comments. Now I realise that I have read and love the Rock Hard series by Nalini Singh, although the one I love most was the second one, Rock hard has not musicians as the main characters. I guess the novel I enjoyed most with a musician was Infamous, by Jenny Holiday, Famous #2.
Grace Burrowes’ The Virtuoso is an historical romance with a piano playing protagonist. It’s been many years since I read it but it should probably be tagged.
But my favorite musician romances are contemporaries: Jenny Holiday’s Famous and Infamous and Sonya Clark’s Good Time, Bad Boy. There is something about exploring the dual personalities involved that are intriguing: the on-stage persona as opposed to who the character is “in real life”.
That last one is on sale right now for 2.99. Worth it?
https://amzn.to/3kvquby
Oh yes! I paid full price at the time and enjoyed it.
Grace Burrowes’ The First Kiss is from one of her few contemporary series. The heroine is a concert pianist who retreats to the countryside and eventually, among other things, gives the lawyer hero piano lessons. I like GB’s contemporaries more than her historicals, although this particular book is not my favorite of the series.
The two absolute best books with a musician hero are True North by Liora Blake and Good Time Bad Boy by Sonya Clark. While the musicians were vastly different, the heroines were similar in that they had characteristics I adore. The were adult women who had some living under their belts. True North: Trevor/Trax is a rocker similar (I picture in my mind’s eye) to Eminem. Kate Is recovering from the loss of her beloved husband. She has written a best selling novel during the years of her mourning. Good Time Bad Boy: Wade is an almost washed up country star struggling with alcohol. Daisy is a waitress call trying to make a better life for herself.
If you haven’t read these books, I envy you. You can read them and enjoy them for the first time. These are both on my DIK shelf.
Good Time, Bad Boy is on sale!
Own it!! I keep waiting for Sonya Clark to write more in this same genre. I have read her Trancehack series as well.
Second the recommendation for “What the Librarian Did” by Karina Bliss.
An old trad Regency where music plays a part is “The Rakehell’s Reform” by Elisabeth Fairchild. It’s the last of the series where the titular rake has gambled away the family fortune (the earlier books are about how various family members deal with the loss as they find their romantic partners). I owe the book a debt of gratitude because it introduced me to the Bach cello suites. The hero plays the cello and his only comfort when he hits rock bottom is music, with the Bach his favorite.
Yes, I remember The Rakehell’s Reform! Fairchild was a firm favourite years ago.
I’ll have to track that one down – I love the ‘cello!
I love rock star romances and agree with many of the recommendations especially VIP series and Stage Dive series. Here are a few more:
Karina Bliss
Start with “What the Librarian Did” and move on to the rest of the series.
Mercy Brown
“Loud is How I Love You” takes me back to the 90s indie music. Really great atmosphere.
Theresa Weir
“Cool Shade” The aftermath of a band tragedy. Chapter titles are 90s’ rock/alt rock which totally sets the scene
Kathleen Gilles Seidel
“Till the Stars Fall” The rise and fall of a huge rock group in the late 80s-90s.
Roni Loren
“Wanderlust”
Now to go do a deep dive into my iTunes library
LOVE the Mercy Brown book and am horrified I forgot them@
I fell asleep just as I remembered this book and woke up ready to mention it. I also think it is excellent!
While I think the series grows progressively weaker with each book, I also loved You Really Got Me, by Erika Kelly.
And my “I can’t believe I forgot!” Is the Grip duology by Kennedy Ryan. IT’S FABULOUS. I devoured it and then tweeted her relentlessly for more. . Which, BTW, she provided (maybe not just for me?!) In a short story in the Cocky Boys anthology.
You Really Got Me is my favorite book featuring a musician. I usually dislike the rock trope but this one by Erika Kelly was a winner.
I enjoyed learning about the behind the scenes part of the music industry. The book was more than just the romance. I loved reading about the heroine’s insecurities and struggles to forge and fight for a career in the music industry that was more than just the personal assistant type of role that she found herself trapped in at the beginning of the story. The secondary characters were great, too.
Seidel is always wonderful.
Penny Reid’s Elements of Chemistry is a favorite NA re-read for me and the heroine changes majors to pursue music full time.
In her followup to that, Laws of Physics, the hero starts in EofC heroine’s band and then becomes a big rock star himself. LofP is such a slow burn that I don’t reread it as much, but I still find it enjoyable.
S.M. LaViolette’s historical romance novel The Music of Love (#1 in Academy of Love Series) features a heroine who is an extremely talented classical pianist who falls in love with the reclusive (albino) gentleman who hires her as his private tutor. Actually, he thinks he’s hiring her deceased husband and she needs the job and money so desperately she accepts the job takes the hired coach and just shows up at his remote estate.
I enjoyed the first half of the book better than the second. It almost transitions into a different book halfway through. Some people have said her description of the hero as an albino was often inauthentic, but all in all I enjoyed it. The heroine is half Italian and raised in Italy-which is somewhat different, and is a sexually experienced, confident heroine for people who don’t like shy, sheltered Miss heroines. (I personally like both).
Though I don’t pick musician-music based stories, I thought I’d toss in “Natural Born Charmer” by S. E. Phillips. The older couple (great in my opinion) are a world class rocker and a former/reformed groupie. I loved their story. And, thanks, everyone, for the “Cadenza” reminder. Need to find that one.
Totes agree on that. I so love Jack and April.
Yes to Cadenza, definitely, but if we segue a bit sideways, the DH and I gobbled up Nashville like it was a box of addictive chocolates. We were late-comers and binge watched it sometimes 3 episodes a night.
I loved the first few seasons of Nashville. It was perfect TV.
The only musician romance I’ve read is LaVyrle Spencer’s SMALL TOWN GIRL, where the hero’s daughter wants to be a singer. The heroine, who is a country music superstar, mentors her. Unfortunately I can’t remember anything else about it.
First to come to mind is Amy Knupp’s Heartstrings with a country singer working on a new album, and a cellist who’s dropped out of the conservatory and is now working at the local shop selling musical instruments. It deals a lot more with the creative process than the superstar aspect, which is a big plus for me. And it holds up on re-reads, at least for me.
So far I’ve only read these once, but I enjoyed them and hope they too will still be good the second time around:
I love Long but that book is my least favorite in that series.
I’m excited for this:
https://amzn.to/3pS8iKg
I think I’ll give the first in this series a whirl. 5 stars from 30+ reviews and a sane price!
Ooh, that one does look promising! Adding it to my list, as well. :)
I don’t have much to add – Stella Riley’s ‘Cadenza’ is certainly the historical that comes to mind for being about the musician as much as about the relationship. Recently read Riven/Rend/Raze by Roan Parrish. Wow that is an alliterative sentence. The first I think was best in dealing with the musician part of things, while the last was the best at dealing with the relationship. I’ve written a few musician-centered things myself but I’m not sure it’s cool to mention those, so. :-)
I don’t know if it’s because I prefer historicals or because I prefer classical music, but the first books to pop to mind were Miranda Neville’s Secrets of a Soprano and Stella Riley’s Cadenza. But in contemporaries, Lauren E. Rico has written a couple of series featuring classical musicians—as outrageous as rock stars but without tattoos.
My husband loved Mozart in the Jungle–I think orchestras are a great place to set a romances!
Not about books, but about listening to music daily. We’ve always had music on in the house, classical, jazz, 60’s rock, popular, country, etc. Since I drove my children to all their (home)school activities, we were in the car a lot and I always had the radio on. (We used to joke about how much we out of the house during our “home” schooling!) My oldest daughter at some point decided she wanted to introduce me to her favorites, and she made a CD for me she titled “Songs Hannah Loves.” This started a tradition that is still going on 10 years and 16 CD’s later. She and the other kids have introduced me to lots of indie artists, as well as well-known bands I would have missed. And as my daughter and I recently discovered, the CDs give an interesting look at the changes in her musical tastes over the past decade or so.
Before COVID we went to a ballet or Broadway musical 7 or 8 times a year, and concerts of all types whenever we could.
While working retail I was at the mercy of piped in music for 7 years for 30+ hours a week, and thought I’d wither up and die! Since COVID struck I’m no longer working, but my husband does his work in our living room so we’re back to a wonderful eclectic mix of music for most hours of the day in our house. My car commutes are fewer, but I spend the time listening to my audiobooks now instead of music.
We have tags for this:
Musician: https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/musician/
Rock star: https://allaboutromance.com/review-tag/rock-star/
And we also did an AAR Loves list on this topic if you are looking for recommendations!
https://allaboutromance.com/aar-loves-romances-featuring-music-and-musicians/
I really enjoyed the first two books of Kristen Callihan’s V.I.P. series (but I really didn’t like the 3rd book, Fall, and I’m on the fence as to whether I will read the upcoming 4th book, Exposed). I’ll be curious how/if we review it. I also liked Famous, and Infamous is a rare difference of opinion for me with Caz. I didn’t like it.
My favorite musician/rock series is Riven, by Roan Parrish. The first (Riven) and second book (Rend) are DIKs, and I liked the third book, Raze, a lot, too. Some of her best work IMHO.
I listen to music ALL DAY LONG. I think about what I’m going to play for my kids in the gym (I teach PE), and am constantly curating/making playlists in my free time in Spotify. I categorize playlists by genre (sometimes) and every month – and I love to check and see what I was listening to in previous years. I miss live music so much and I can’t wait until I can see my favorite bands live again – especially since my new home (Dallas) gets so many more bands that never made it to where I lived in Florida.
Oh – How could I have forgotten Riven/Rend (haven’t read book 3 yet!)?! I liked them both, but Loved Rend – possibly because I did both in audio and Greg Boudreaux was (as he usually is!) incredibly good.
Jacqueline in Tammara Webber’s Easy is a musician (she plays the upright bass). It’s not the focus of the book, but it’s a big part of her life and that definitely comes across.
Two recommendations that appeared in the comments following Caz’s post: Rise by Karina Bliss (the rest of the Rock Solid series isn’t bad, but that one’s the best) and Sonya Clark’s country music standalone Good Time Bad Boy.
Hah, well, if yours is Famous, I suppose mine has to be Infamous, doesn’t it? ;) I hate the cover, but the book is wonderful. Anna Zabo’s Twisted Wishes trilogy is good – my favourite is the middle book, Counterpoint. Maybe this sounds weird, but as a musician myself, I don’t tend to gravitate towards books that feature them. I always like to read them in a story – and I admit to a big soft spot for a musician hero in historicals – Simon St, Maur in A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal and Julian Langham in Stella Riley’s Cadenza come to mind specifically. But sometimes I’m wary when I read musicial characters because the effect of music or experience of playing it can be very difficult to describe, and some authors just can’t do it. I remember reading a book I won’t name (but that I did review here) where the descriptions of tinkling arpeggios and floaty whatevers got on my nerves!
I’ve also reviewed a couple of books in Mary Burchell’s Warrender Saga, a 13 book (I think) series originally published by Mills & Boon in the 1960s, and recently republished in e-formats. They all revolve around classical music in some form; Oscar Warrender is a world famous conductor of opera, and several of the books are set in that world. The author does a great job in them of showing just how hard it is to succeed and how hard people have to work in order to get anywhere as a performer. Just as interesting is the fact that the author – who’s real name was Ida Cook – was a dedicated opera buff who, together with her sister, helped rescue many Jews from the Nazis during WW2.
I discovered the Warrender series last year and liked it a lo
I’ve been slowly working my way through it (very slowly – I’m only on book 3 or 4 so far!) but I’m enjoying it. It’s interesting to see how far romances have progressed since they were written – not just in terms of heat levels, but in the way that the hero is almost a secondary character much of the time. As I said, they have a real understanding of the classical music world – which is where I would firmly plant myself; I’ve played an instrument of some kind since I was around six and it’s my enduring love – and that’s rare.
Yes to all that, except for playing an instrument- my ear/ talent went into languages not music, when it comes to „sounds right“ or not.
I’m convinced having a good ear can translate to other things. I teach languages :)
Yes, I believe that too. Good combination, Caz – which languages?
Ideally, both can be applied in your life.
And if you get stimulus in one direction (for me, languages, not music practice) then that is how it is channeled in your life.
Mostly French but I do some Spanish and German as well if required. You usually need to be able to teach more than one language at secondary school level here as most schools offer two languages.
Good for you: 4 languages, lovely!
I was just about to mention the Twisted Wishes series, it’s perfect!
I’m not a huge fan of “Musician Romance” and I do find that a lot of the time the music & accompanying lifestyles are little more than “wallpaper” on which to hang the romance, but I did enjoy Lauren Blakely’s super-hot m/m ONE TIME ONLY (and the prequel, MAYBE THIS TIME) about a rockstar and his bodyguard. I also liked CD Reiss’s LEAD ME BACK, which has a hero who is a cross between Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber. Skye Warren’s North Security series (OVERTURE, CONCERTO, and SONATA) features a violin prodigy who has a very transgressive relationship with her guardian (transgressive eroticism—often without much actual sex—is a hallmark of Warren’s work). Warren does a great job of showing how much hard work and dedication goes into becoming a world-renowned classical musician.
I thought One Time Only was pretty awful, tbh. The narration in the audio was fabulous, but the story was practically non existent and a complete waste of such talented performers :(
I’m probably going to think of more as this thread goes on, but the first one that springs to mind is Tears of the Moon by Nora Roberts (a classic for good reason and may be my favourite of that series)
I love than one too. The entire family in that trilogy was musical in some way as a I recall.