🎧 A Dual Review by LD & CJ
LD’s Rating: 4.1/5 | CJ’s Rating: 3.25 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read How to Date a Rockstar yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Overview
Ruby has spent her whole life not knowing where she came from. Adopted as a baby, she’s always had that question sitting quietly in the background. Until Olivia, a journalist working on a deep dive into a legendary rock band, shows up and flips everything on its head.
It turns out Ruby’s biological father was Christopher Durant, a rockstar who was shot and killed by Robert Murray, years ago. Or so everyone thought. Robert was convicted, claims it was an accident, and has been in prison ever since. Ruby’s biological mother, Robin Sadler, is also dead, killed in what looked like a hit-and-run that wasn’t as accidental as it seemed.
Olivia wants Ruby’s help getting access to the people who knew Chris. Ruby wants answers about where she came from. That’s how she ends up inside the house of Brooks, Chris Durant’s former band mate.
Brooks, Chris’s bandmate and one of the last people standing from that era, is completely blindsided by how much Ruby looks like her father. Penn, another friend from those days, reacts the same way. And then there’s Tessa Durant, Chris’s supermodel widow who was secretly separated from him before he died and has been controlling his royalties ever since. Tessa is cold, calculated, and very motivated to control the narrative.
Kim Morrison is also in the mix — another member of the band, and someone Chris had quietly just started something with right before he died. A relationship nobody outside their circle knew about.
DNA confirms what everyone suspected: Ruby is Chris’s daughter. Tessa, in a move of pure calculated chaos, outs Ruby’s identity online before Ruby has a chance to process any of it. And then Tessa turns up dead.
A lot has been happening under the surface. Jason, the band’s manager, was secretly impersonating Chris in chat rooms for years. Seems he’s the one who manipulated Robert Murray into waiting outside with a gun the night Chris died. Robert really did shoot Chris, but he was.
And Danny. Danny, the quiet groundskeeper nobody was watching. He is Robert Murray’s son. His obsession with Ruby has been building since he first saw her. He had a spy hole on the third floor. He tampered with condoms. He kidnaps her.
Ruby manages to force a crash to escape. She survives. Danny doesn’t.
Three years later, Ruby and Brooks have a daughter. The pregnancy came from the sabotaged condoms. Brooks dealt with a concussion in the aftermath. Ruby spent weeks in the hospital. And then they built something together on the other side of all of it.
LD’s Thoughts
I genuinely enjoyed this book. The mystery at the center of it — who really orchestrated Chris’s death, Jason’s role in all of it, the layers underneath the surface — was well done. The pieces clicked into place in a satisfying way. A 4.1 is a real rating for a real experience.
But I have some thoughts.
The romance between Ruby and Brooks comes out of nowhere. They’ve had maybe three conversations, and suddenly there’s a love story happening. I kept waiting for the build and it just didn’t come the way it needed to. For a book called How to Date a Rockstar, the actual dating part needed more room. The connection between them is implied more than shown, and I wanted to feel it, not just arrive there.
Same thing with Danny. His whole storyline drops completely out of nowhere because there are essentially no warning signs. He’s in the background being quiet, and then suddenly we’re in full stalker-who-tampered-with-birth-control territory. The intent was probably to make the reveal shocking, but the total absence of red flags made it feel more jarring than satisfying. One or two moments of something slightly off earlier would have gone a long way.
And Robert Murray is an interesting situation. He really did shoot Chris, but he went there for Kim — the woman Chris had just started seeing. He’d been pouring his heart out to someone he thought was Chris, not knowing it was Jason pulling the strings the whole time.
Nuanced, and I liked that complexity. What got to be a lot was the reveal of Jason as the mastermind PLUS Danny as a completely separate second threat, basically happening at the same time. Two climaxes stacked on each other. It mostly works, but it’s a lot to absorb.
Still. The mystery is solid, the story moves, and I was happy I listened. I’d go back for another pass.
CJ’s Take
I had similar reservations, but my overall rating was more affected by them; I would have placed this one around a 3.25. As LD said above, the relationship between Ruby and Brooks was strange to me. They have a few moments where he keeps saying nothing can happen, and then he’s telling her to move in… WTF? I have no idea why she’d be okay with that after he had done nothing but step away if they got close.
I also have to say that not much of the rest made sense to me, including the kidnapping and subsequent big reveal. There weren’t any hints leading up to the end, so Danny and Jason having their own agendas and being teamed up with Robert came out of left field… I can’t help but think I missed something critical. Or maybe a few somethings? This is why I don’t listen to a lot of books on audio unless it’s a reread, because I don’t trust my own brain enough to be sure I paid attention to every moment along the way. I was very interested in the whole premise with a cold case, a secret baby, a calculating bitter ex wife, and so many other unknowns, but I didn’t feel like it all played out well. Everything felt jarring from the romance to the mystery on this one, and while I love Kylie Scott and her other books, I don’t think I’ll be rereading this one. I want to note that I did love the narrators!
The Steam Rating Breakdown
Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — Warm
There’s some heat but nothing explicit. The romance builds slowly (arguably too slowly) and the steam fits the tone: present, but not the focus.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
The epilogue three years later is sweet, and seeing where Ruby and Brooks landed was the right note to end on. The life they built after everything — a daughter, a relationship, something that survived — felt like the payoff the story needed. The how of getting there is wrapped up in the Danny situation, which is dark and complicated. But the ending itself settled well.
Would I Relisten?
Yes. The mystery makes it worth another pass. Knowing how the Danny storyline ends would completely change the way you read his early appearances. There’s something to going back in with full knowledge and catching what you missed.
Who Is This For?
If you like mysteries wrapped in a romance, or romance wrapped in a mystery, depending on which one you want more of, this is worth your time. Fans of rockstar romance who also want actual stakes and a plot that goes somewhere darker than expected will find a lot here. Just don’t go in expecting a slow burn. The romance moves fast, maybe too fast, and the thriller elements are the stronger half of the book.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book
Amazon US | Amazon CA
🎧 Audiobook
Audible CA | Audible US
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Ready for more from LD? Find them here
Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Standalone | Genre: Contemporary Romance / Thriller | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥