Crashed Out (Made in Jersey #1) by Tessa Bailey
Contemporary romance published December 7, 2015, by Entangled: Brazen
Jasmine Taveras is the reason Sarge Purcell grabbed his six-string and bailed the hell out of New Jersey four years ago. She’s the fuel for every song he’s ever written-each one laced with bitter, hard-edged, hungry lust. Now, with his hugely successful band on temporary hiatus, Sarge is determined to prove to Jasmine that he’s turned into every inch the man she’s always needed…
Men are slim pickings for a single factory girl in Hook, New Jersey…until tall, broad-shouldered hotness walks—or rather storms—into Jasmine’s life. Sarge’s return shouldn’t affect her this way. He’s her best friend’s much younger brother, and the kind of rough, gritty, sexiness Jasmine has no right to taste for herself. Even if he lets her.
But lust is a blinding, insatiable force. And when it crashes, it will take both Sarge and Jasmine down with it…
I read Crashed Out for the April TBR Challenge—Something Different. I hoped for a fun read based on the premise of this book. Older woman/younger man, best friend’s little brother, and a rock star romance?! Unfortunately I’m disappointed. Very sexy but I wanted more conversations between Jasmine and Sarge about who they were and what they saw in each other, not just dirty talk. The story seemed very superficial and I wasn’t in the mood to accept two or three days of fabulous sex and a couple “grand gestures” was enough for Jasmine to fall in love with Sarge.
I thought it was serendipitous that I found this book. I was waffling between two sub genres I haven’t read in awhile/don’t regularly read for this month’s TBR Challenge and landed on rock star romance. I searched Goodreads Rock star romance lists and saw I had this on my to-read list since before it was released in 2015. Plus I haven’t read Tessa Bailey in years and just saw her at KissCon so the stars aligned!
But I quickly became bored with the story. I think there were missed opportunities to go deeper into why Jasmine stopped pursuing singing and stayed in Hook, why did Sarge seem to let his unrequited feelings for Jasmine keep him from really talking to his sister for four years, what did Sarge see in Jasmine that he loved now compared to who she was and who he was four years ago when he was 18 (especially since they didn’t really talk about what her life has been like for the last four years)? Inquiring minds (mine!) needed to know more for this read to really work for me.
Lots of sexy times and dirty talk. (I think I started skimming the sex scenes pretty early in the book.) But I wanted way more relationship and individual character development. Sarge has been on the road for four years with his band but doesn’t talk to Jasmine about them? And I don’t think the bass player has a name in the story (I assume this comes out in Lita and James’ book but why couldn’t they just get a name instead of “the bass player” or whatever?). There’s no indication Jasmine saw Sarge as more than River’s brother when he left town four years ago but she learns enough in a few days with no deep conversations about anything other than sex to fall in love? So. Many. Unanswered. Questions. And it just didn’t land for me.
It was a fast read and also had a holiday theme. Very hot sexy times and Sarge is super intense. Not a home run for me but could work for others.
Grade: C-
You can buy a copy here.