Montlake Romance
Featuring: Ryan De Luna; Maisy Harrison
320 pages ISBN: 1503902838 EAN: 9781503902831 Kindle: B0797SNSSQ Trade Size / e-Book Add to Wish List
#MOONSTRUCK is a contemporary
romance novel written by Sariah Wilson. If you are a music lover and a
fan of romance novels, then #MOONSTRUCK is a must read! Many can dream of
meeting and falling in love with a pop star, but for Maisy, her dream
comes true.
Once you start reading #MOONSTRUCK you will not want to put it down! An
addictive read that draws you into a world unlike any other. The
characters are relatable and realistic with creative backstories that help
create a read that is sure to capture your heart. Maisy has had a good
but hard life. She is likable and relatable. Due to her past, she has made
one rule that she vows never to break. A rule that Ryan can only
challenge her to break.
Maisy and Ryan have a memorable first meeting that causes sparks to
fly throughout #MOONSTRUCK. A
truly swoon-worthy read that will tug at your heartstrings. A story that
has a steamy fake romance, a cast of fantastic characters, and witty,
hilarious banter. I could not put this one down.
Wilson has the perfect touch when writing romances that are
beautifully told in a way that makes it easy to fall in love with the
characters and their love story. #MOONSTRUCK is the first novel that I have read by
Sarah Wilson, and I cannot wait to read more. If you are a lover of
romances that are steamy but relatable then you need to add #MOONSTRUCK to your reading list.
Over one million “likes”—but only one of them matters.
After pop star Ryan De Luna praises Maisy Harrison’s YouTube
cover of his classic hit, he offers Maisy and her fledgling
band the opportunity of a lifetime: to be his opening act.
Music may be Maisy’s life, but she has one ground rule:
never date a musician. That goes double for a heartbreaker
like Ryan. If only she didn’t feel so vulnerable to his
larger-than-life charm. And maybe now more than ever, when
he asks for her help to shake off his playboy image. How can
she resist playing the part of his fake girlfriend for the
duration of the tour?
Ryan’s never met anyone like Maisy. She sees past all the
star-studded fame and treats him like any other guy. And the
more time they spend together, the more he finds himself
falling for her. Now he’d like to make their imaginary fling
an IRL thing. But can he convince her to take a chance and
trust him with her heart?
Excerpt
"Where were you?" Cole asked in a teasing tone when I found
him at the bar. "Let me guess. You found the man of your
dreams but were too aloof for him to notice you. That's my
IQ. Nobody scares men off the way you do."
I hated when he called me IQ. I was about to tell him as
much when I was interrupted.
"What? Maisy was roofied?" Parker repeated, obviously
mishearing the word aloof. "Who do we have to beat
up?"
"I am fine! All of you calm down!" I loved my siblings, but
they needed to stop acting like we were living in the
seventeenth century and they'd been personally enlisted by
the king of England to guard my virtue.
"All joking aside, you know how dangerous clubs can be,"
Fitz added, his worried expression making me feel a little
guilty for not telling them where I was going.
"I'm fully aware of the dangers, thanks to your many
hypocritical lectures." How was I supposed to tell them what
had just happened outside? I hardly believed it myself. "I
think you guys should sit down. There's something I need to
talk to you about."
They warily did as I asked.
I stood silently for a moment, not sure what to say or how
they would react. Better just to rip off the bandage all at
once. "So this random thing happened. Ryan De Luna came to
see us perform tonight. He liked what he saw, and he asked
if we wanted to be his opening act for the rest of his
tour."
My brothers just gaped at me. Like I'd announced my recent
return from exploring the planet Mars and discovered a new
humanoid species there that made me their empress.
I told them the financial details and how Ryan was waiting
to hear from us. "If we don't meet him at the Brown Bear
diner in half an hour, he'll assume the answer is no."
"Ryan De Luna was here. Tonight. He listened to us play, and
now he wants us to open for him? The biggest tour of the
year?" Parker said each word slowly and carefully.
I nodded. "That's what I just said."
"And he's at the Brown Bear diner right now, waiting for us
to say yes or no?"
"Do you guys have a hearing problem? Yes, he wants us to
open for him, and yes, he's waiting for our answer."
All three brothers exchanged glances and without another
word jumped to their feet and sprinted for the back door.
Fitz grabbed my wrist, pulling me alongside him as they ran.
When we were all in the van and Parker had somehow coaxed
the beast into starting, I asked, "Does that mean you're
interested?"
Fitz looked at me like I was especially dumb. "This is the
biggest opportunity we've ever gotten. We'd have to be total
idiots to pass it up. I just don't understand why he'd want
us to open for him. We're not going to bring in any new
fans. Everybody in the audience would be there just to see
him, and we'd get to benefit from it."
"Yeah, and what he's offering salary-wise is really
generous, given where we're at in our career," Cole added.
"He could have paid us a lot less. Why would he pay us so
much?"
"Maybe he's just a nice guy." It was something I had been
considering since I left his car. I had initially assumed
he was an arrogant, playboy douchebag, but maybe I'd been
wrong.
We were stopped at a red light. All of my brothers turned to
stare at me, and I could see the moment when all three light
bulbs lit up over their heads.
"He wants you," Parker said, forced to face forward as the
light changed. "This is about you."
"No way. This is not about me. I have made it very clear to
him that I'm not interested. At all. The night I met him
backstage? He was a total jerk to me. I called him names.
The only reason I didn't hit him was because he has big,
scary bodyguards. And I really laid into him. You guys would
have been proud."
"Maybe that's what he's into," Parker murmured to Cole, who
nodded.
I threw up my hands in exasperation. "You guys are seriously
the stupidest people ever."
"Even if he tries to make a move on Maisy, and we have to
rough up his pretty-boy face"—Cole kept talking like I
hadn't even said anything— "it wouldn't matter. This will
get our name out there in a big way, and if people like what
they see, we'll book new tours and sell our songs. We might
finally be able to make a living as artists."
That hadn't occurred to me until he'd pointed it out. That
opening for Ryan might mean opening for other acts. That we
would get to travel all over the world, performing for
thousands of people, building a name for ourselves,
gathering a fan base that would actually buy our music.
Ryan was offering to help us start down the path that would
lead to everything we'd ever wanted.
It seemed too good to be true. "Do I get a say in this? Like
always, you guys have decided what we're doing without even
asking what I want."
"Okay, IQ, what do you want?" Cole asked.
"Don't call me that. I don't know what I want. But what if I
say no, I don't want to tour with Ryan De Luna?" I couldn't
imagine months of my brothers jumping to idiotic conclusions
where he and I were concerned.
"We need the money." Parker looked at me in the rearview
mirror.
We pulled up in front of the diner. I felt both relief and a
bit of panic when I saw that Ryan's car was there. As we
climbed out of the van, I was hit with the smell of pumpkin
pie, my absolute favorite. I worried a bit about how the
introductions would go but stopped with my hand on the front
door when I realized my brothers had stayed on the sidewalk,
near the van. "What are you doing?"
"Go on ahead of us. We're going to have a discussion on how
to handle your new boyfriend," Cole said.
If I kept rolling my eyes this hard, I was going to
permanently detach them from my eye sockets. "He's not my
boyfriend. He's not even boyfriend-adjacent. We're not going
to date, and the quicker you Neanderthals get that through
your furrowed foreheads, the easier your lives will be. Now
I'm going in not because you told me to but because I really
want pie."
Holding up my head, I marched inside. There weren't many
people in the diner, and Ryan sat all the way in the back,
near the bathroom. He had his hat and glasses on. "Hey," I
said, sliding into the booth.
He sported that bone-melting smile again. "I didn't know if
you'd come."
"Here I am." Yeah, this wasn't at all awkward. How was it
possible for one person to be this good-looking? He sat
there looking like a half-Latino Clark Kent. As if it wasn't
bad enough that he was so handsome he could have been a
movie star, he had this . . . power. This draw that made it
so you didn't want to look away from him. Like he was the
sun and you were the planet formerly known as Pluto,
desperately wishing you weren't so far apart but knowing he
would burn and consume you with just one touch if you
altered your orbit to get closer.
He was so gorgeous he made you think inappropriate things.
Not that it had ever happened to me.
"What about the rest of the band?"
"Outside, acting like morons." I pointed at them as a
waitress approached. I asked for the pumpkin pie and told
her to bring some for Ryan as well. He started to protest,
but I insisted she bring it.
"I don't really eat processed sugar," Ryan said. "I'm into
the whole clean-living thing."
"Me, too. Although sometimes my clean living includes eating
a pound of fudge at midnight."
He nodded seriously. "Oh no, I don't have food issues."
Without thinking, I leaned over and smacked him on his manly
forearm. "I don't have food issues!"
He laughed. "The pounds of fudge consumed at midnight would
suggest otherwise." Which made me laugh, too.
The waitress returned with our slices of pie, topped off
with Cool Whip, and we both thanked her. I immediately dug
in and couldn't help but let out a little moan when the
combination of pumpkin, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg hit my
tongue. "This is seriously the best thing that has ever
happened to my mouth."
"That's sad."
He was such a flirt. And I had the racing heart rate to
prove it.
"It's not sad. It's amazing. Try it."
Ryan took one tiny bite, just enough to taste it. "It is
good. But I can say with all confidence that it's not the
best thing that's ever happened to my mouth." The fiery
intensity of his stare was enough to make my Cool Whip melt.
I swallowed hard. He was making this difficult. I was going
to go on tour with him unless my idiot brothers were outside
coming up with a way to ruin that, and I didn't know how I
would be able to handle a sweet, nice, flirtatious Ryan De
Luna.
Maybe it was just a waiting game. If I gave him enough time,
he'd go back to accusing me of using his cousin to make him
jealous. Or bragging about how great he was or how women
worshipped him. Something.
Then I could get over this teeny physical crush I had on
him.
Okay, this King Kong–size physical crush I had on him.
Trying to look away from him was like trying to pry two
really powerful magnets apart. There was a lot of
resistance.
Stop staring at him. You've seen good-looking men
before. Why are you acting like this is the first time it's
ever happened?
I couldn't stop. I didn't know what was wrong with me.
"So, tell me the names of the other guys in your band."
"Um, the tallest one is Fitz, the one in desperate need of a
haircut is Parker, and the one waving his arms around is
Cole."
"Since you don't date musicians, do you just hook up with
them instead? Any history there I should know about? Touring
with exes can get complicated."
I choked on my pie and tried very hard not to gag. "Ew.
Gross. Zero history. They're my brothers. And the no-dating
thing includes hooking up. I don't, how did you put it,
notch with musicians, either. That's also a rule."
"So, what, you notch nonmusicians?"
I could feel the flush burning its way through all my layers
of skin, setting my cheeks on fire.
"No."
His eyebrows flew up. "Seriously? You've never—"
"Not that it's any of your business, but never. It's
something I plan on waiting for. Until I get married." After
watching my mother throw away her entire adult life, I had
no intention of following in her footsteps. I would never
give that much of myself to just some guy. Especially some
musician guy. The only way I could imagine it ever happening
was if I was so committed to someone, and so trusted him,
that I was willing to marry him.
Thankfully, he changed the subject. "They're all your
brothers?
"Is Fitz short for something?"
"Fitzgerald. Our father wanted to name us all after famous
jazz musicians. Cole is short for Coltrane, and then Parker
couldn't really be shortened."
Ryan ate another tiny sliver of pie. "I don't know anyone in
jazz named Maisy."
I pushed down the lump in my throat as I thought of my mom.
"My mother insisted that I be named after my grandmother. So
my middle name is Ellington."
"Do you get your talent from her?"
"No. She couldn't have carried a tune in a bucket. She used
to swear that my first word was shubbup. When she
sang me to sleep, I would tell her to shut up every single
time." I would have given just about anything to have her
sing it to me again, though.
Ryan laughed at my story, and it warmed me inside not only
to hear it but also to share this good memory of my mom. I
had actually forgotten about it.
"Does your mother like jazz, too? Is that why she went along
with the jazz-musician names?"
No, she'd gone along with it because she had absolutely no
self-respect or pride where my father was concerned. "She
was more of a Beatles fan. If she'd had her way, we'd be
John, Paul, George, and Ringo."
He gave me a serious nod. "I can see you as a Ringo."
Now it was my turn to laugh.
"Is that why your band is called Yesterday?"
"Yep. It was her favorite song."
Ryan pushed the Cool Whip off his pie and looked like he
wanted to say something but wasn't sure if he should. "You
talk about your mom using the past tense. Did she pass
away?"
I let out a shaky sigh. "No . . . but it's hard to explain."
Especially without curling up into a ball and sobbing.
He tapped his fork against his plate. "Maybe you'll tell me
the story someday."
"Hey."
I had been so caught up in my conversation with Ryan that I
had completely forgotten about my brothers. Now all three of
them stood next to the booth, glaring at us.
"One question, dude," Parker said, taking a step forward.
"Are you asking us to be your opening act so you can bag our
sister?"
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy