Spotlight: One More Promise by Samantha Chase (Excerpt, Review & Giveaway)

One More Promise by Samantha Chase
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on February 6th 2018
Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
Rating:

Ambitious Paige Walters is ecstatic when she's hired to recruit musicians for a literacy campaign—it's her chance to prove she's got the chops to make it in the family business. She certainly isn't going to let some fallen idol screw it up. But as the work brings Paige and Dylan closer together, their attraction grows…and so do their challenges…

“Brilliant. Just brilliant,” Paige murmured as she placed her trash in the pail and carefully wove her way through the crowd of people in the coffee shop. Over and over in her mind, she replayed her clumsy act of knocking her stuff to the ground.

And that was after practically orgasming while eating a cake pop.

Okay, two cake pops.

She groaned as she exited the shop and walked toward the parking garage. Why had she agreed to go to coffee with Dylan Anders? Why hadn’t she stuck to her guns and had Daisy call him with an appointment? Not only could she have avoided making an idiot out of herself, but she also could have kept her previous clueless opinion of him intact and not have to deal with the fact that he was a nice guy who seemed to get what she was trying to do.

Other than Daisy, he was the only one who seemed to get what she was doing.

And now she realized she had a fascination with tattoos. Tattoos! When Dylan had first taken off his jacket, she was shocked and a little repulsed by the sheer amount of ink on his arms. But after a little while, she couldn’t help but keep noticing the artwork and found it to be…exquisite. Beautiful. More than once she had to stop herself from reaching out and touching his arms—which, forgetting about the tattoos, were muscular and sexy—and asking him to tell her what had inspired the choices.

Why? Why him? Why couldn’t one of her favorite authors have come in and talked with her like this? Why did it have to be a scruffy, tattoo-covered rock star who not only didn’t look the part of anything she was trying to do, but who potentially would also be a distraction for…well…her and probably any female in a ten-mile radius?

Although, she had to give him credit—other than the barista who handed him their order, no one bothered him. No one came looking for autographs or pictures. He blended right into the crowd. How was that possible? When she got home, she would do a thorough Google search and see what else she could find out. Yes. That’s exactly what she’d do. As charmed as she was by him—and she truly was—she had a feeling that part of it was an act to get her to agree to have him join the campaign.

But why? Why was this such a big deal to him? He wasn’t going to be paid for it. And really, compared with being in one of the biggest rock bands in the world, this was nothing. It wasn’t doing anything for him on a professional level, so why was he so anxious to be a part of it? What could he gain?

If there was one thing Paige prided herself on, it was being a good judge of character. And Dylan didn’t strike her as the selfless type. He had a swagger and a confidence that seemed in direct conflict with the image she was hoping to project with this campaign.

So was this personal? Did he know someone who struggled with reading? He was clearly well read based on what he’d shared with her, so she knew he didn’t have the issue. Someone who struggled with literacy didn’t read that many books in a three-month time span. Should she decide to work with him, she’d have to ask.

With a groan, she pulled out her keys as she approached her Toyota Prius Prime. Her sporty little hybrid was shiny and new, and she loved how she was doing something good for the environment at the same time. It had been a fight to get her father to install charging stations in the company garage, but he had relented and now…

She stopped and noted that her car wasn’t charging.

“Dammit, how could I have forgotten to plug it in?” Then she remembered how she had hurried in this morning and feared she was late. Honestly, it wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten. But as she stepped closer, she saw that was the least of her problems.

She had a flat tire.

“Dang it,” she hissed. With a loud sigh, she opened the door and tossed her bags in and then popped the trunk to get at her spare tire.

Then she really started to curse.

It wasn’t until that moment she remembered how this model no longer came with a spare but with a patch kit and a pump. Great. Like she had even the slightest clue how to patch a tire! She let out an aggravated growl and slammed the trunk shut.

“Everything okay?”

Great. Just great. Turning around, she forced a smile. “Oh…hey, Dylan. What are you still doing here?”

“I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere and I got a call, so I decided to take it rather than be distracted on the road. So…what’s going on? Everything okay with your car?”

And for the life of her, she didn’t know why her temper chose that moment to snap, but it did. “Actually, no. It’s not. And you know why?”

Dylan was about to answer, but she cut him off.

“Because life sucks, that’s why!” she cried. “Or maybe it’s just me. I forgot to put my car on the charging station. Why? Because I’m too worried about how it will look if I’m three minutes late for work! Then—because that’s not enough—my front tire is flat. Flat! It was fine this morning! And my super-new, super-cute, super-efficient, great-for-the-planet car doesn’t come with a spare tire. Oh no. That would have been too easy. No, this car comes with a patch kit and a pump. So I have more trunk space, but now I have to figure out how to patch a tire!”

“I’m sure it’s not—”

“Do you see the lighting in here? My glasses? Do I look like someone who is going to be able to spot a hole in a tire and then patch it? Take the tire off and put it back on? Do I look like I even want to?” she asked, her voice going into the hysteria category.

Slowly, Dylan climbed from his car and walked toward her. “Okay, okay. How about we call AAA or something? Maybe they can send someone to do it for you?”

While it was a completely reasonable suggestion, it pissed her off even more. “Because I wanted to leave! I wanted to leave an hour ago! And now I’m never going to get to leave or go to the grocery store to get brownies and wine, so I can go home and Google who the heck you are!”

Enter to win a Samantha Chase Prize Pack

a Rafflecopter giveaway

~~Reviewed by Evelyn~~

Samantha Chase returns to the world of rock music and leaves with another hit! ONE MORE PROMISE, the second novel in the Band on the Run series (an off-shoot of the very popular Shaughnessy Brothers series), follows extremely famous and good-looking Dylan Anders, bass player for the rock band Shaughnessy, and quiet, pretty Paige Walters, who works in her family’s marketing firm. They are thrown together when Paige creates a national literacy awareness campaign and Dylan, who is fresh out of rehab, signs on to improve his image and to pick up some community service hours.

Dylan is an interesting character. He seems to have one foot in two worlds. He’s been living the wild life of a famous rock star but now wants to try to leave that lifestyle behind for a more reasonable and normal life. He doesn’t, however, want to leave the band or the music behind, thus creating a conflict. Also, even though he no longer wants the crazy rock star lifestyle, the public and the press won’t let him forget that he will forever be a part of it, like it or not.

Dylan finds himself intrigued by Paige who lives in a world of books and is totally unimpressed by Dylan’s rock star persona. In fact, she is resentful that she is named his handler for the duration of the literacy campaign, especially since she wanted the campaign filled with famous authors, not the music and movie celebrities her sister/co-worker had in mind. Unfortunately, as always, her sister won out, and Paige once again finds herself losing the battle for her father’s respect and confidence. She really doesn’t want to be working for her father’s company, but she feels trapped and doesn’t know how to find the way out.

Truly the odd couple, their attraction at first is completely physical. Will they be able to see past the obvious at some point and find other things to draw them together, or will it be time to say goodbye at the end of the three-month literacy campaign?

Both Dylan and Paige are very likeable characters. Dylan could have been an arrogant jerk and Paige could have been a stuffy brainiac, but both were haunted by vulnerabilities that made them sympathetic. I enjoyed seeing the growth in each character as their story progressed. They both found strengths in themselves and each other that they didn’t know existed. It was especially fun to watch their growth as a couple as they overcame the stereotypes that they both seem to personify when they first met.

Dylan is supported by a cast of secondary characters that include his Shaughnessy band members and their manager, Mick, none of whom seemed to be living the stereotypical rock star life. As a fan of the entire Shaughnessy Brothers series, I was glad to have an update on Riley Shaughnessy and his family.

Paige was not so lucky in the secondary character support category. I liked her assistant Daisy who was hopelessly star-struck when it came to Dylan. It was difficult to like her clueless sister and self-absorbed father, however. If I were to change anything about this book, I would have liked to have seen the Walters family dynamics fleshed out a little more.

Congratulations Ms. Chase on another hit! Can’t wait for the next installment, not only for the new story, but for an update on Dylan and Paige.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

Rating:

Related Posts