Review – Hot Rock by Annie Seaton

Publisher: Entangled
Publish Date: Out Now
How I got this book: NetGalley

Megan Miller is on a dream trip to research her doctoral thesis at a rock festival in England. When she arrives in town she’s stunned that her temporary neighbor is the spitting image of her 70’s rock idol, too bad he’s also a world-class jerk. So why can’t she stop thinking about him?

Seventies rock star Davy Morgan is a man with a secret: rockin’ in one time and living in another. He holds his privacy close to his heart, so when a beautiful girl who not only loves but truly understands his music moves in next door, he works overtime to keep her at a distance. Easier said than done.

Megan follows Davy to the rock festival, but it’s not what or when it seems. The lure of the music draws them closer, but can their newfound love span across the decades, or will it get lost in time
*Blurb from Goodreads*

I’m not a big fan of time travel romance, but I was hoping that the rock star aspect would make up for my blase feelings about jumping time. While it helped, it didn’t work as well as I had hoped.

Megan’s been working on her doctoral thesis, and with a trip to England to attend a rock festival, she is hoping to get everything she needs in place for her research. But her life starts to unravel the moment she lands, with her job at risk back home and a surly neighbor she can’t seem to stay away from. But Davy is more than he seems.

Davy loves his music, but hates everything about the business. When a friend shows him the power of time travel, Davy finds himself living in the future, and traveling back only to work on his music. But meeting Megan has Davy turned up in knots, unsure if he is willing to trust his secret with his time travel secret.

While I enjoyed the fact that Seaton kept the time travel between the 70s and today’s time frame, there were times I was confused as to what time the characters were in. In a few scenes, the transition between current and past wasn’t fully explained, and I was a bit lost as to what was going on. It made me go back and re-read quite a few times to see if I could get a better handle on what year the characters were living in at the time.

The romance between Davy and Megan wasn’t what I was expecting either. Davy was surly and gruff and more than a little hesitant to trust anyone. Given the way the media had flamed him in the 70s, and his attention-hungry publicist, trusting Megan wasn’t something he was able to do easily. They danced around each other, and at times it felt like their relationship would take one step forward and then about thirty back. Davy was very wishy-washy when it came to Megan, and there were times I wanted to smack him upside the head for doing one thing and then saying another.

While I enjoyed Megan and her free spirit, there was one aspect of her character that didn’t sit right with me. In the very beginning, she finds out that her ex-boyfriend is accusing her of misconduct at the University and she is under investigation. For someone as devoted as Megan seemed to be to her work, she didn’t seem all that concerned that her professional career was crashing down around her. To me, I needed to see more from her in regard to that. I had a hard time buying that she wasn’t more frantic than she seemed.

While the bare bones of this story were well established, I would have like the book to be a bit longer. It felt like certain plot points weren’t fully explored, and that left me hanging a bit. I wanted everything more flushed out: the time travel aspect, the resolution with Megan’s job and career, the romance between them. I just wanted more!

All in all I thought Seaton did a good job writing a time travel romance that actually appealed to me. However, I did find other aspects of the story lacking, especially in the heroine’s character development and the overall romance. That being said, I would be willing to try Seaton again in the future.
I give Hot Rock a C

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