Stone Cold (Music City Moguls, #1)

by Cheryl Douglas

[inlibrisveritas]

Stone Cold is not your typical fluff romance, it has a lot of heart and shows that second chances do happen. This is my first contemporary romance book in a very long time so I went into it sort of hesitant because it’s not my first choice for genre, but it turned out to be a really good read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Stone Cold takes place in the city of music, specifically country music, Nashville. Drake Elliott is a music producer who has all the material possessions he could ever want but he only wants Cassidy…until a very big mistake tears them a part and he struggles to get over the incident. To be honest Drake is very hard to like to begin with. He doesn’t handle the situation well at all and some of the things he says are extremely hurtful, but it’s easy to see why he would rather lash out than even attempt forgiveness. However I found it really interesting to see how he struggled to move on and how he dealt with everything, and how over time he did grow as a person. Cassidy’s story is touching and I really liked her as a person. She’s very strong willed and has had a very rough past as she struggled with drug addiction and a broken family. The best thing about her is that she doesn’t accept the easiest way possible and she doesn’t want to live a life based off of someone else’s success, and just seeing how much she grows from the beginning of the book to the end is really amazing.

The romance is not like the ones I’ve read before where two strangers come together slowly, overcome some obstacles and have a happily ever after. Instead we have a pre-existing relationship that is very broken due to trust issues and misunderstandings, and instead of seeing a simple reunion we get to see them grow as people and form a new and better relationship. I love that Cassidy is a strong woman who isn’t afraid to say she wants more of herself and that she needs to worry about that before she allows someone else into her life, and I love that she wasn’t always that way, that she had to build herself up and do things for herself. I also really like seeing Drake and Cassidy reconnect with family, even though those relationships have proven toxic in the past.

Stone Cold not only focuses on the romantic relationship between two people, but also focuses on personal growth, second chances and forgiveness.