Review: Exposed

Exposed by Kristen Callihan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Brenna James and Rye Peterson have known each other since she was eighteen years old and they've been sniping at each other pretty much ever since. Rye is the bassist for Kill John, one of the world's biggest rock bands, and Brenna handles the bands PR. As the rest of the band start pairing up (see books one to three), Brenna feels she is missing out. She is bored of one-night stands and doesn't want to settle down with 2.4 children, but she's lonely and she wants something, someone who knows what they are doing, she's even considered an escort agency. Rye is sitting behind Brenna in the bar when she makes this declaration to her friends, he's been mooning after Brenna for years, its an open secret among his bandmates, and his only way of coping is to constantly snipe at her, but this could be his chance to show her how he feels. Brenna has had a crush on Rye since she was a teenager and he was a member of her cousin's band, it breaks her heart to see him with a string of other women and she hides behind the snarky comments.

At first horrified by the friends-with-benefits arrangement proposed by Rye, scared that it might be an elaborate gotcha at her expense, but she eventually capitulates. Can these two lost souls find each other?

I absolutely loved the first two books in this series. I bought the third book and either gave up or forgot to review it (which I've only just discovered) and I was stoked when I saw this was coming out. Sadly, this felt too similar to Karina Bliss's Rock Solid series (BTW excellent series if you are interested) and I think Rise which tells the story of the powerhouse PA of rock band Rage and the nice guy drummer, is better.

I found the friends-with-benefits story a bit icky TBH and the frequent sex scenes felt forced rather than smexy. Randomly, the plot with Brenna's parents reminded me of a smash-up between two of Susie Tate's books (which generally feature English/Welsh doctors). So overall, the plot felt over-familiar.

Maybe I would have liked this better if I hadn't had such high expectations.

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