To My Muse by Nicola M. Cameron

ROMANTIC COMEDY
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Publication date: 05/15/2018
Kindle Unlimited: No
Cliffhanger: No

There’s a lot of good stuff here. This is a new-to-me author, and any of you who have followed my reviews for any length of time realize how rare it is for me to award a new-to-me author anything higher than, say, a 2 or 3-star rating. So, for this to earn a 4, you know it was pretty darn good.

Here’s what I loved:

1. Lily, the heroine, isn’t white. Y’all know how much I love diversity in romance.  
2. There are some truly funny scenes in this book. Some of the things Lily says are laugh-out-loud funny, and after reading several unfunny rom coms that shall remain nameless, that was refreshing.
3. Female friendships are genuinely and beautifully portrayed.
4. The writing itself is very good. Nice pacing, realistic dialogue, not too many errors (no book is perfect, but nothing really stood out to me as totally wrong in this one)...this is a great example of technically solid writing.     

Now, all that said, I don’t think this book will appeal to every romance reader. There are a few things you’d have to be willing to overlook in order to enjoy this one:

1. If you’re a reader who can’t suspend their disbelief, this one probably isn’t for you. Let’s face it: it’s just not realistic that someone can walk into a hotel off the street and sneak into a famous actor’s hotel room. It’s even less realistic that the famous actor wouldn’t have LOTS of questions for the person who broke into his room. Stalkers are a real threat, and I don’t feel like Tom takes his safety as seriously as he should. (But if you CAN suspend your disbelief, the break-in scene is pretty freakin’ funny)
2. There’s no sex in the book. I don’t mind clean romance at all, but if you’re looking for spicy contemporary romance, you’ll want to look elsewhere.
3. I hate to say this because it makes me sound sooooooo shallow, but...the cover is really boring. If you can’t look past a lackluster cover, this one probably isn’t your cuppa. I try not to judge based on covers, but hey, I’m only human and I like pretty things as much as the next girl. And besides being a smidge boring, this cover doesn’t say “romance” to me. I’m not saying the author needs to slap a set of abs on the cover to convey that it’s romance (in fact, I’d prefer she didn’t), but there should be SOMETHING on there that conveys the genre.    

So, long-story-short, this was a fun read from a new-to-me author that I consider to be a safe 1-click for MOST romance readers. (All you romance readers out there looking for hot sex in their reads—you know who you are. Hold your heads high, ladies and gentlemen!)

Full disclosure: We received an ARC from the author, free of charge.                         
 
Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It’s definitely not stigma-y. No rehab needed.  

Other reading suggestions
I’d be willing to take a glance at the author’s backlist based on this book. And for more average-folk-falling-for-Hollywood-royalty reads, you’ll want to check out THIS best of list.

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