Sister Golden Hair by Juli Page Morgan (Illicit Rockers #1)
Contemporary Romance
June 16, 2014
Carey On Publishing

Reviewed by Helyce

Favorite Quote:  “You’d still like to bang him, though, wouldn’t you?” Rhett grinned before she could stop herself.  “Like a screen door in a hurricane.”

Rhett Davis is at a crossroads.  She’s lived in the same small Texas town all her life, but she never felt like she fit in.  She got pregnant her senior year, married her boyfriend, raised her daughter-now grown and married-took care of her mother and made the best of the hand she’d been dealt.  The first thing she does is quit the job she hates, and then, after receiving some shocking news about her husband, she sells her house, buys a new car and makes tracks for the big city of Dallas. On the way to taking charge of her life, Rhett gets a new wardrobe, gets her hair done and buys herself a Jaguar.  For once in her life, she’s putting herself first.

But fate has a weird way of screwing up the best laid plans. Driving back to her sister’s place one day, she notices a guy stalled on the side of the road and stops to help.  It’s none other than Rhys James, the lead singer for the band Illicit and her young teen heart’s previous fantasy lover.  And as fate would have it, he’s currently staying in the penthouse of her sister’s building. Rhett can’t help but be enamoured by Rhys’s easy going style-not at all what she’d have expected from the rock God she’d idolized all her life.  Surprisingly, there seems to be a spark between the two of them and Rhett is in a place in her life where she’s willing to take some chances and fly by the seat of her pants.

Juli Page Morgan is a new author for me, but when I read the blurb for Sister Golden Hair I had to read it. I loved that Rhett and Rhys are a bit older.  Rhett is 42 and recently widowed.  She’d spent most of her life  being there for other people-from her single mother who divorced when Rhett and her sister Melanie were young, to then becoming a mother herself at 18.  She married, and was a faithful wife through good and bad just like the vows state.  Rhett loved her husband.  They’d been married a long time and while they were having a bumpy patch right before he died, she had no idea what exactly was going on with him until after his death.  This knowledge becomes the catharsis to Rhett’s life changing decisions.

I could certainly relate to Rhett in a lot of ways.  As a mother, we tend to put everyone before ourselves; husband, children, parents, etc.  I loved watching her evolve in some really basic ways.  Having struggled with her weight the last few years of her marriage, she’d started a healthy eating and exercise routine and had lost weight, but had never really updated her mom wardrobe.  When she pulls out a pair of jeans her daughter had gotten her for Christmas and puts them on and realizes she looks good in them, it’s the beginning of the metamorphosis of herself.  Slowly she begins to peel away the layers, getting highlights, make up, new clothes until the new and improved Rhett that she was always meant to be emerges.

Rhys James was a bit unexpected for me.  Totally hot rock star, of course, but because he meets Rhys during a bit of down time from the band, he appears really down to earth and not at all what you’d expect from a celebrity with his rock star status.  This makes you love and accept him even more. He has certainly done the models and actresses and is usually seen with a young, very enhanced woman on his arm-but after he meets Rhett-he can’t wait to touch her skin, her curves, her very real breasts.

“Christ, he wanted her.  Those lovely blushes and the almost shy glances she gave him from under her lashes were clear indicators that she didn’t find him objectionable, either.  But this wasn’t a woman who was going to strip off and get down to business five minutes after they met.  He’d have to prove himself worthy of her, and not the other way around. He wanted to prove himself worthy of her before he got her naked.

Rhett naked.  A sigh that was more of a groan slipped from between his lips.  He’d bet a year’s royalties there was nothing plastic about her, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on what was sure to be soft, warm, pliable flesh.  Was she blonde all over? He hoped to hell she wasn’t running round with one of those disturbingly bare Brazilian jobs.  Not that he wanted a Yeti by any means, but Rhys was a man who liked a little mystery, a treasure to be discovered with his hands and tongue.”

I also enjoyed Rhett’s relationship with her sister.  My first impression was that they were not that close.  Melanie had moved away right out of high school, gone to college and established herself in Dallas.  She has a great job, is single and does what she wants whenever she pleases.  When Rhett moves to Dallas she stays with her sister and they find a really easy camaraderie.  Mel is her main supporter and sounding board as Rhett navigates her relationship with Rhys.

Predictably, Rhys’s rock star status and life prior to his meeting Rhett comes crashing in full force to provide obstacles-a-plenty for their new relationship.  Rhys’s ex-wife and daughter are at the root as they both scheme and conive to ruin Rhys and Rhett’s fragile bond.  If that wasn’t enough, Melanie and Rhett learn things about their father that they never knew and also receive some devastating news about their mother. Some of Rhett’s worries are miraculously cleared up and though it all seemed to fall into place a bit too easily, it worked for this story.

In Sister Golden Hair, Ms. Morgan gives us a feel good romance while also letting us live vicariously through Rhett to have that fantasy of nabbing a rock star God for our own. While the conflict they experience has a been there done that quality to it, in the end I really liked how the author has Rhys redeem himself.  This story pushed all my buttons in a really good way and I look forward to the next in the series, Heart of Gold coming out sometime in the fall.

Rating: B+

Goodreads l Author Website

Kindle (and Kindle Unlimited)