Review: Relentless Rhythm – Michelle Mankin

The one she really wants is out of reach.
The one he really needs is already taken.
Dizzy Lowell, rhythm man for the rising rock band Tempest is a wizard on the guitar and a wonder with women. But the hookup specialist hides his emotional scars beneath his suave exterior. He never lets anyone truly touch him.
April Reynolds, the confident bartender of the Diamond Mine, knows her way around a cocktail, but Dizzy has her all mixed up. She knows what’s safe. She’s tired of settling, though. It would be so easy to fall under his spell.
Except for that ring around her finger.
Two searching souls separated by a thin metal band.
Some dreams are dangerous.
Some secrets shouldn’t be shared.
Sometimes what we wish for most can never be.

Relentless Rhythm is the darkest and saddest story in the Tempest series by far! Dizzy amazed me, and April had an inner strength as well my heart swelled for these two characters, and Mankin frankly outdid herself.

In the earlier stories about rock band Tempest, Dizzy was mostly in the background, seen with different girls, but never the same girl twice. In Relentless Rhythm, it seemed he had finally set his eyes on a woman, but of course, it was a woman he couldn’t have. As Dizzy’s past unfolded, I was so sad for him, it was so heartbreaking. And he still seemed so calm and controlled on the surface, never really caring about much, doing his thing, playing his drums, and hooking up with groupies when he felt like it. Until he met April, and just couldn’t stay away from her. Even if she was not giving him any vibes saying she was open for anything with with him.

April, too, had a really hard life, married to a man who saw her as a possession he could push around in any way he wanted, scaring her, hurting her, and basically making her life a nightmare. In a strange way, though, Dizzy and April managed to give each other hope, and that is something that I found both compelling and beautiful! Especially because that hope managed to help them make small steps towards changing their lives for the better, daring to look forward with optimism for the first time in many years.

Written in first person point of view, past tense, Relentless Rhythm has chapters both from Dizzy’s and April’s perspective, and they were amazing characters to follow. I loved that even with all the bad things they had been through, their hearts were still open, just not to everybody. And the way their relationship grew from acquaintances to something more over the span of the story made me dizzy with hope for them. To me, this is the best of the Tempest stories, even if I have enjoyed the others as well. Mankin knows her rock stars, and she made them human and relatable in a way that doesn’t always happen.

My knee bounced anxiously, out of sync with the light pattern on the dance floor behind me. I tried not to focus on how late she was or how panicked my reflection looked between flashes in the mirror that framed the bar. The heavy bass rhythm of the digitally remixed cover of Brutal Strength’s ‘Brothers’ was starting to drive me crazy, my nerves stretched tighter than the E string on my Gibson SG.

I finished filling a couple of tumblers with ice before looking up. The blue haired imp was fanning her cute heart shaped face with tatted hands that spelled out her nickname in fanciful script above her knuckles.

My shoulders hit the wall. The sudden impact caused me to bite my tongue. I tasted the tang of my own blood. But fear overrode the sharp flash of pain. I squirmed in his grip trying to break free while inwardly chastising myself for my lack of situational awareness.

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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