Posted on Plot Twisted | By LD
It seems Kylie Scott has a type. Her heroes are not grand-gesture guys. They don’t show up with speeches. They show up with the thing you mentioned once, in passing, six weeks ago that you assumed nobody heard.
LD has now read seven Kylie Scott books and has a lot of feelings about every man in them. Here’s the ranking — by what they actually did, not what they said. Full spoilers. No apologies.
1. MAL — Play (Stage Dive Book 2)
He bought her a condo so she could have the dog she mentioned once as a kid. He named the dog Killer.
Mal is absolutely hillarious. Childlike enthusiasm. Completely unfiltered. Says things that make no sense, does things that make perfect sense, and makes every single scene he’s in more interesting just by existing in it. And underneath all of that chaos, he is paying attention to absolutely everything.
Here’s the resume:
When Anne’s roommate vanishes with all the furniture AND owing Anne a bunch of money after she covered for her for months, Mal overhears her situation from a dark corner of a patio — she didn’t even know he was there — and by the end of the next day he has moved himself into her apartment, paid her rent, and replaced every piece of furniture that was taken. In exchange for acting as his fake girlfriend. He won’t explain why.
He replaces her furniture, pays her rent, becomes her fake boyfriend, breaks a bed with her via chaotic banter, and gradually becomes her actual boyfriend because he forgot to stop.
But here’s the real one: Anne mentioned once – once, offhandedly – that she’d always wanted a dog as a kid but her mom wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t asking for anything. She was just talking.
Mal remembered.
After his mom dies, during the stretch of silence where he won’t answer her texts, won’t let her come be with him, goes completely dark — he is spending that time figuring out what he wants and how to show it. He shows up at her birthday, gets in a fight on the lawn with Reese, and when everything settles, he pulls out a dog.
Named Killer.
And because she can’t have pets in her current building, he also bought her a condo. He took care of that too.
He heard one throwaway thing about her childhood and built an entire life arrangement around it. That is the Mal move. That is what puts him first.
Also: David showing up to play drums with him in silence while he was falling apart — that friendship, that no-words moment of support — is one of the best scenes in this series..
★★★★★ 4.7/5 — LD’s favourite of the series
→ Full spoiler review | → Spoiler-free at Plot Approved
2. GARRETT — Famous in a Small Town
He bought the whole town. He proposed on stage. She was already pregnant and he didn’t know yet.
Garrett Hayes is a rock star who moves to Wildwood, the small town where Ani grew up, and the entire town immediately agrees to call him “Garry” and protect his identity from the press. That’s your first clue about who Garrett is: people want to protect him.. or they really like Ani.
Ani has anxiety and PTSD from a home invasion — a man with a knife, a scar on her neck, years of managing her nervous system in ways nobody who hasn’t been through it fully understands. Garrett doesn’t try to fix it. He just pays attention to it. He builds space around it. That’s the character.
The dynamic between them runs on “non-dates” that are clearly dates that neither of them will admit to. The whole town is watching and absolutely nobody is playing it cool except Ani and Garrett, who are doing a terrible job of it.
Then Garrett buys the whole town. Not a metaphor. He actually buys most of the town to help it. And when the press finally figures out who “Garry” actually is and descends on Wildwood, the whole town closes ranks to protect him.
He proposes on stage at a bar in front of everyone. She’s already pregnant — she found out in the bathroom right before.
Smith, the bandmate, needs his own book. That’s all we’re saying.
★★★★★ 5.0/5
→ Full spoiler review | → Spoiler-free at Plot Approved
3. DAVID — Lick (Stage Dive Book 1)
David moved cities without telling her. He walked her home from work every day for weeks. He brought pizza because he could see she’d lost weight.
David gets third place because the breakup scene exists and it absolutely has to count against him.
Here’s the full situation: David’s PA Martha was his first love. She cheated on him with his own brother Jimmy. The earring he wears every day — bought with his first paycheck, he gave her the matching one and never took his off, he also never told Ev. He’s been carrying that in silence the whole time.
At a show, Martha reveals the earring to Ev. Ev connects everything a few minutes after Martha walks off. She goes looking for David, walks into a room, kicks open a door, finds Martha’s hands in his hair kissing him. She demands an explanation. He gives her nothing. His response when she says she’s leaving: stay without explanation or we’re done forever.
That scene is hard to sit with. The book gets there — eventually he tells her the truth, eventually the whole Martha situation is explained — but he withholds every explanation and then blames her for leaving, and that requires real forgiveness.
Here’s how he earns it back:
David moves to Portland, he sells the house he’d bought for a future with Martha and moves to the city where Ev lives, three blocks from her work, to record an album. He doesn’t tell her.
David just shows up every day and walks her home from work. And then He gets her pizza because he can see she’s lost weight and he’s paying attention. He does this through her telling him to get lost, through her brother trying to fight him, through Martha calling and Ev kicking him out. He keeps showing up. Every day. Even if that means he needs to walk on the other side of the street to give her space.
And when Ev takes him to meet her parents, who are unimpressed in an almost impressive way, she stands in front of them and tells them she’s the luckiest woman in the world and that this is her husband and they’re staying.
She gives him a ring. He gives hers back.
The comeback earns it. The breakup keeps him from the top two.
★★★★★ 4.1/5
→ Full spoiler review | → Spoiler-free at Plot Approved
Honourable Mentions
Text Appeal (wrong number / small town): The hero in this one pays attention in the same Kylie Scott way — the small details, the town, the grandma who absolutely steals the show. Full details over at Plot Approved since there’s no Plot Twisted review for this one yet, but he belongs in the conversation. LD has listened to this three times. Updated: There is now a Plot Twisted review! I love this book! Very cute
The Stage Dive Continues: Lead and Deep are also reviewed by LD — ★★★★½ and ★★★★ respectively. Neither hero quite makes this particular list, but both books are worth your time if you’re in the series.
The Kylie Scott Pattern
Here’s what LD has figured out after seven books: Kylie Scott heroes don’t love loudly. The heroes love in the thing you mentioned once that you assumed nobody remembered. They love in showing up when they said they would. They love in the earring they never took off and the dog they named Killer and the town they bought and the apartment they moved into three blocks from your work without telling you.
If a Kylie Scott hero is paying attention to something you said, it’s going in the vault. That’s the whole type. And it works every time.
Browse all Kylie Scott reviews at Plot Twisted →
Want the spoiler-free versions? Plot Approved →
