🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 ⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read Lick yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
She wakes up in Vegas with a pounding head, no memory of the night before, a tattoo that says “David,” and apparently a husband. Just your average morning, really.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The Morning After
Ev — Evelyn — is twenty-one years old, in Vegas for her birthday, and wakes up the morning after with absolutely zero recollection of what happened. The tattoo on her ass says “David.” A quick look around confirms she is, in fact, married- based on the man in her hotel room. She still doesn’t know who David actually is. Getting off the plane home, she finds out fast. The marriage has already hit the press — she’s all over it — and people are recognizing her on the street before she even knows her own husband’s name. That husband turns out to be David Ferris, lead singer of Stage Dive, one of the biggest rock bands in the world. What’s immediately clear, even before they properly meet, is that David did not treat this like a drunken mistake. He bought her a five-carat wedding ring. This was not a fling to him.
The Annulment That Wasn’t
Ev’s internship evaporates the moment the story breaks. David sends his bodyguard Sam to bring her to him — officially to arrange an annulment and handle things safely, but his lawyers immediately make the whole situation worse by throwing a settlement at her that she doesn’t want any part of. She just needs air. She goes outside and runs into Mal — the drummer — who reads the situation correctly, takes her to his beach house to hide out, and accidentally sends David into a spiral because he assumes the worst. Which is, apparently, the moment David realizes he’s already in too deep to let this be simple.
Getting to Know Each Other
What follows is the part of this book I loved most — a slow, genuine getting-to-know-each-other stretch where David takes Ev to a house he owns, but he’s never even been to before, and they start figuring out who the other person actually is. Here’s the thing: Ev told him everything the night they met. Drunk Ev shared her dreams, her past, her whole self — and David remembered all of it. He paid attention. That detail tells you exactly who he is underneath the rock star exterior. Tyler and Pam, the caretakers of the house, are good warm people who ground the whole stretch. We fnd out David hasn’t been able to write in two years — until Ev shows up and somehow inspires him into finishing something. The two of them are trying to be friends while clearly failing at it in the best possible way, and when Ev finally catches a smell that triggers her memory and pieces of that lost night start coming back, it shifts everything for David who is suddenly interested in putting in more effort now. The bulk of the book is them working through this — becoming friends, then more, then deciding that an annulment isn’t actually what either of them wants.
Martha
Martha is David’s personal assistant, and from the very beginning she makes it clear she dislikes Ev. The reason doesn’t surface until the last quarter of the book, and when it does it hits hard. Martha was David’s first love. He bought a house for her — a place for them to settle down together — and she cheated on him. He’s been carrying that, quietly, the entire time, and the earring he wears every single day? He bought it with his first paycheck. He gave Martha the matching one and kept the other. He never stopped wearing it- neither did she. At a show, Martha pulls Ev aside and tucks her own hair back, just enough to show the earring. Ev connects it immediately — the earring David still wears every day, his first love, the cheating, and the fact that he never once mentioned any of this to her. Martha disappears before the show ends and goes straight to David. Ev goes to find him. She walks into a room where David’s brother Jimmy is high and barely present, and Ben — the fourth member of the band, and Martha’s brother — steps in front of a partially open door and tells her she needs to let them work it out. This is their thing. They’ve always been like this. Ev kicks the door open anyway. Martha’s hands are in David’s hair. They’re kissing. She demands answers. David refuses to give any. And then — and this is the part that’s hardest to sit with — he tells her she promised not to leave him, and that if she walks away, they’re done. No second chances. He will never take her back. But he refuses to tell her what’s going on. She goes home to Portland.
The Reunion
Weeks pass. A friend drags her out, she gets drunk, she’s dancing and doesn’t notice the man who falls in behind her until he says her name. It’s David. He explains that Jimmy went into treatment and they did therapy together. It’s been twenty-eight days. Ev tells him to get lost — and then fucks him in an alley and tells him that was goodbye. He tells her he’s not leaving Portland until they talk. His plan is simple: he’s going to walk her home from work every day and feed her pizza because she’s clearly lost weight and he can tell. He does exactly that. They get to the door, and Nate — Ev’s brother, who she barely has a relationship with — is there and goes straight for David physically. Her brother is only there because he is now suddenly dating her best friend and roommate.. It was a weird moment, honestly. When you’ve had next to nothing to do with your sister, the right to suddenly be fiercely protective of her feels a bit questionable. But that’s where we are. Then Martha calls. Ev loses it and kicks David out. He keeps walking her home anyway. Every day after work. Just showing up. Eventually she lets him talk. He finally tells her the truth: Martha cheated on him with Jimmy. His own brother. But he still blamed Ev for leaving — for not staying even when he refused to explain a single thing to her. Which is a lot to unpack. Martha shows up and fills in the last piece: David sold the Monterey house — the one he’d originally bought for Martha- The one he and Ev has stayed at for days — and moved to Portland. He’s recording a new album a few blocks from Ev’s work. She runs to him at the recording studio. They get back together. She takes him to meet her parents — they’re not impressed, they DO NOT like him — and she stands in front of them and tells them she’s the luckiest woman in the world and that he’s her husband and they’re staying together. She gives him a wedding ring. He gives hers back. Jimmy, for what it’s worth, comes out the other side of rehab and is genuinely putting in the effort. The good people get their happy endings. That’s the whole vibe of this book and it works.
Best Part of This Book
The slow getting-to-know-each-other stretch in the middle, and the way David’s care for Ev shows up in the details — remembering everything she told him while drunk, the pizza, showing up every day in Portland because he said he would. And the ending where he just stays. Sells the house, moves to her city, records nearby, walks her home every day until she’s ready. That’s the whole argument for him right there.
Worst Part of This Book
The breakup scene at the concert. David sees Ev’s reaction, refuses to tell her a single thing about what’s actually happening, and then gives her an ultimatum — stay without explanation or we’re done forever. Blaming her for leaving after that is genuinely hard to forgive. The book gets there eventually, but that scene is a rough one.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥🔥 — Some heat, not the main focus. The romance and the slow emotional build carry the book more than the physical side of things.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied. The alley scene is chaotic and perfect, the daily pizza-and-walking-her-home campaign is quietly one of the most romantic things in the book, and the studio reunion lands exactly right.
Would I Reread It?
Yes — already have.
The Twist We Didn’t See Coming
The earring. One small detail David has been wearing every single day, connecting him to a woman Ev had no idea existed in his past. The moment it clicks for Ev is genuinely well done.
Who Is This For
If you love a slow burn that actually earns it, a hero whose feelings show up in the small details rather than grand speeches, and you’re okay with a messy middle before a very satisfying ending — this one’s for you.
Where to Get This Book
📖 Physical Book Amazon.ca | Amazon.com | Bookshop.org
📱 Ebook Amazon Kindle .ca | Amazon Kindle .com | Bookshop.org 🎧
Audiobook Audible Canada | Audible US | Libro.fm
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Book 1 — Lick | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
Book 2 — Play | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.7/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
Book 3 — Lead | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.6/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
Book 4 — Deep | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 4.1/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
Series Review | Reviewed by LD | ⭐ 5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 — [Read the Review]
Ready for more from LD? Find them here Plot Twisted. 🔥 🎧 | Series: Stage Dive Book 1 | Genre: Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥 | Narrator: Andi Arndt