Rock The Heart (Black Falcon #1) by Michelle A. Valentine-a review

Amazon.com / Amazon.ca / Barnes and Noble / KOBO

ROCK THE HEART (Black Falcon #1) by Michelle Valentine

ABOUT THE BOOK: November 2012

For the last four years, good girl Lane has regretted breaking up with Noel Falcon. She thought she was sensible when she told him his dreams of being a rock star would get him nowhere, but now that he’s a rock god and her career is stagnant, she realizes just how wrong she was. When Noel hires the marketing company where Lane is an intern, she’s forced to see him again. If she wants to land her dream job as executive within the company, she has to win him over and secure his account. Too bad Noel is still pissed at her for breaking his heart.

•••••••••••••••••••

REVIEW: ROCK THE HEART is the first storyline in Michelle Valentine’s contemporary, new adult Black Falcon series featuring the lives and love of the rock band Black Falcon. Rock The Heart features Noel Falcon and Lanie Vance. Our hero and heroine have been friends all of their lives and in this the relationship build up was non existent. High school would find their relationship become one of friends to lovers but Lanie’s desire to attend college and her hopes that Noel would follow were shattered when Noel chose his music. Breaking up with Noel was difficult but Lanie never realized how hard their break up would be on the only man she has ever loved.

Rock The Heart fast-forwards four years after Lanie broke it off with Noel. There has been no communication between the two and when they are finally pushed together by circumstances and work, Lanie will discover that Noel has a few secrets. As the storyline progresses, Lanie and Noel will rekindle their passion and newfound addiction to each other, but when Noel’s secrets are finally revealed, Lanie realizes that she doesn’t know the man who has stolen her heart. Their love for one another is both powerful and heartbreaking but Lanie’s image of Noel is shattered when one of the band members reveals the truth behind the current animosity between himself and the others.

Noel is the epitome of bad boy rocker but for all intents and purposes, it is a ruse. His need and love for Lanie overshadows the bad-boy persona and he is instantly transformed into a man who would do anything for the love of his life. He wears his heart on his sleeve and in doing so, is more likely to get his heart broken when the woman that he loves walks away a second time.

Lanie, on the other hand, struck me as a woman with issues of control. She is the one who dumped Noel four years earlier and yet her feelings for the man continued to overwhelm her emotions and fears. And in doing so, she came across as cold and a b*tch. Trying to keep their current relationship professional, Lanie continued to play the wounded victim when she is the one who pushed Noel away. She plays a dangerous game with Noel’s feelings, continuously skirting the edge between love and hate. For this, I had a difficult time relating to or liking Lanie and as always, she was quick to assume the worst.

ROCK THE HEART is a fast paced storyline that introduces the members of Black Falcon and in doing so sets the stage for future stories. The reader is pulled into the back stage world and personal lives of the bad boys of rock, but in doing so we will learn that everything is not all happiness and roses. Michelle Valentine writes an interesting story of one man’s need for the girl who has stolen his heart many years before and of a love that only grew stronger with the absence of the one who made your heart beat; your blood flow and your soul sing with the angels.

READING ORDER
1. Rock The Heart (Nov 2012)
1.5 Rock The Band (Jan 2013)
2. Rock My Bed (April 2013)
2.5 Rock My World (June 2013)
3. Rock The Beat (Sept 2013)

Copy supplied by the author.

Reviewed by Sandy