Review: Irresistible Refrain – Michelle Mankin

Two years ago everything changed for the remaining members of the Seattle rock band Tempest.
Two years is a long time.
Too long to keep on remembering.
Not nearly long enough to forget.
In trouble with nowhere else to go songstress Lace Lowell seeks refuge with the band during their stop in New York City. It's a risky move for her because they are both there, two impossibly good looking men whose lives are inseparably entwined with hers. One who bruised her heart and one who smashed it into pieces.
Warren “War” Jinkins, the mercurial lead singer of Tempest, has always had a thing for Lace. But then again so does his best friend and band mate.
Bryan “Bullet” Jackson, the sinfully handsome tat-sleeved lead guitarist, has a bad boy reputation befitting his nickname. For the past two years Bullet’s had a rule with the groupies: one time, never twice, leave ‘em satisfied, but always leave ‘em.
Two guys, one woman, and a host of dark secrets all together within the tight confines of a tour bus as the group travels cross country.
Can the past be forgotten and buried?
Will friendships prevail?
Or will the three of them succumb to seductive impulses too addictive to resist?

Irresistible Refrain is an irresistible story of a broken girl and the boy she’s loved since she was little. Music, a fast-paced life and the fact that she’s with his best friend instead of him made this so compelling!

Lace was so very lost, and being back in the Tempest tour bus didn’t really change any of that. Even as she had been away from the band for a long time, she picked up her relationship with War as soon as she came back, even if Bryan was looking at her differently than usual at this time. Irresistible Refrain showed the ugly side of the music industry, especially when it came to War and Lace. Drug-use, not taking care of themselves or each other – they managed to make their own lives very dark and harsh – with little hope in sight.

In Irresistible Refrain, Mankin goes way down into the dark and gritty depths of the characters, and it made them seem so very real, flawed, vulnerable and actually not as confident as they showed the outside world. The drama Lace’s return brought to the band was understandable, and it never felt over the top. Bryan had loved her since they were children, and Lace had loved him right back. However, she started dating War, and then Bryan had to back completely away because he couldn’t go after his best friend’s girl.

The inner turmoil Bryan felt in Irresistible Refrain was so strong I could feel it with him! And Lace was hiding behind a tough exterior, especially when it came to Brutal Strength’s singer, Avery. She had read all about Bryan and Avery, but she really didn’t know anything about what had happened between them at all. The bad feelings, betrayals, hopelessness and desperation were very strong during the beginning of the story especially. However, as Lace finally started to take charge of her life again, she realized that there was more to life than what she had given herself in the recent past.

Written in first person point of view, past tense, the characters really shared their feelings, and there were flashbacks to the past of both Bryan and Lace to help me understand them better. A strong story with flawed characters that were very enticing, Irresistible Refrain got me hooked from the start. Throughout the story, there are chapters from either Lace’s or Bryan’s perspective, and seeing the same story from two different points of view made it even stronger.

In the rare times that we weren’t together, War scoured his house looking for clues to his dad’s identity while I did my best to pretend to get along with my dad, for my mom’s sake. Inside, I fucking hated him.

Lace. I froze solid. I wondered when she had come on board. It must have been last night while I’d been preoccupied with the twins. Mind quickly running back over the evening’s events, I realized that War had been conspicuously absent form the meet and greet. He must’ve been with her. The familiar jealous burn seared the inside of my chest like battery acid. 

My mind remembered how badly Bryan Jackson had hurt me, but my traitorous body wanted me to forget. It wanted me to go back, wrap my legs around that washboard waist of his, curl my fingers into his tatted biceps, fuse my mouth to his and beg him to make me moan instead of those twins. 

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2015 TBR Pile Reading Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge 2015

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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