Sep 19 2012

REVIEW: The Mighty Storm by Samantha Towle

By Jane • B Reviews • • Tags: , , • • • Author:

Dear Ms. Towle:

I found out about this book over at the Amazon forums.  It’s one of the better places to discover self published books by authors that aren’t widely known.   Part of the success of the book will rely on the reader’s ability to a) buy into an instant love between two childhood friends and b) tolerate cheating by the heroine on her existing boyfriend with the hero.

Samantha Towle The Mighty StormTrudy Bennett and Jake Whethers were best friends from tots to teenagers.  Jake’s father was a brute of a man and his mother weak and Jake spent a lot of time at the Bennett household where both kids learned to love music at the guidance of Trudy’s father, a musician himself.  At the age of 14, Jake was moved to New York. Tru wrote to him and called him but over time gave up when she had no response.  Fast forward several years and Jake Whethers is now an international rockstar and Tru is a music journalist for a small magazine who scores one of the first post rehab interviews with Jake on his come back tour.

Jake’s band member and best friend, Johnny, killed himself driving high and drunk. The death drove the already unstable Jake around the bend, culminating in Jake urinating on stage during a Japanese concert.  It was Jake’s wake up call and he’s now determined to tour with his band to honor Johnny’s memory.

Even though the story is told in the first person, the reader knows instantly that Jake is not only excited to have Tru back in his life, but he’ll do just about anything to keep her there.  He doesn’t care that she has a long time boyfriend.  He doesn’t care that he is going on tour.  Instead, he decides he is going to have a biography of his life done and Tru is going to write it.  Some faint nods towards the ethically questionable nature of this are given but neither Tru nor her editor really belabor it.  Jake certainly doesn’t care.

The first part of the book is Tru trying to resist Jake’s advances.  She knows she wants him but she also cares for her boyfriend and she’s not willing to throw away two years of a good relationship to be a fling of Jake’s.

Tru’s dilemma provided most of the emotional agnst for the first 40% of the book and when she does fall into Jake’s bed, it seems only inevitable.  Fortunately, I felt that she handled the situation as best as possible without unnaturally dragging out the infidelity which I was worried would happen.  The second half of the conflict involved Tru being concerned about whether she wanted to actually live Jake’s life which was privacy free and involved the constant presence of bodyguards and cameras.

Because the book is written in first person, the sex scenes are quite verbal which is why, in part, the sexiness is ratcheted up. I’ve never been a fan of the first person erotic romance stories but perhaps I’ve gotten used to them or the ones in the past just weren’t as good, but the love scenes in The Mighty Storm are as good as a third person story.  Maybe it’s the graphic language.  The during sex dialogue or just the high emotional level of the story.

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