RATING
Dream Maker wasn’t necessarily bad, it just failed to keep me engaged in the long run. I decided to DNF out of boredom more than out of hate, which leaves a possibility I’ll try to finish it later on. Who knows?
Evie is a bonafide nerd and a hyper-intelligent chick who has worked her whole life to get what she wants. Growing up, she had no support from her family and has only ever been able to rely on herself. So when Evie decides she wants to earn her engineering degree, she realizes she needs to take an alternative path to get there. She takes a job dancing at Smithie’s club thinking this would be a quick side gig, where she can make the money she needs. But with her lack of dancing skills and an alpha bad boy who becomes overly protective, Evie realizes this might not be as easy as she thought.
Daniel “Mag” Magnusson knows a thing or two about pain, but the mask he wears is excellent. No one can tell that this good-looking, quick-witted, and roguish guy has deep-seated issues. Mag puts on a funny-guy routine so he can hide his broken heart and PTSD. But when Evie dances her way into Mag’s life, he realizes that he needs to come face-to-face with the demons of his past if he wants a future with her.
Author : Kristen Ashley
Title : Dream Maker
Series : Dream team #1
Number of pages : 544
Publisher : Forever
Release Date : May 26th, 2020
Genre : Contemporary Romance
DNF @71%
I feel like such a grouch every time I start a new KA book now… Sigh, this is where nostalgia is taking meeeeeh!
It saddens me to file this one as a DNF, especially since I felt so excited starting Dream Maker, shouting in ALL CAPS how great it was to get a new book from Kristen Ashley that felt like her vintage work! I was happy to discover a similar tone and vibe that made me fall in love with the author’s characters in the Rock Chick series as opposed to the last few releases from the author that I’ve found to be lacking a “je ne sais quoi.” Yeah, that old case of nostalgia gets to me every damn time!
(I still regularly reread and appreciate many of her books, from Rock Chicks, Mystery Man, Colorado Mountain, The Burg…)
The idea of a new generation of Rock Chicks on paper held some appeal, only, the way it was executed in the book caused more than a couple eyerolls, with characters from previous Rock Chicks and Mystery Man books acting like total caricatures of themselves. It was probably meant to be cute, I personally found it awkward.
The Rock Chicks
I have truly enjoyed myself up until 25%, then things started to feel monotonous. Once the meeting stage of Evan and Mag’s relationship ended, my interest slowly started to wean off, the main plot revolving around bad guys going after Evan wasn’t exciting enough to keep me engrossed and the focus on the romance was just so… DEJA VU. We’re also introduced to all the pairings “Lottie MAC Macalister” has made between the new commando guys and her “girls” from Smithie’s stripclub for the next books in the series.
Literally every commando guy in this book is paired with a feisty-like heroine
Every conversation Evan and Mag were having was like replaying an old tape of Rock Chicks, the hero reigning in the heroine frantic behaviour, mansplaining about how things were going to unfold from now on, you know, all the alpha shit I usually love in KA books, except this time it read to me like a stale recipe unfolding.
Also, the nitpicking asshole that I am have got to point out how absurd is it to give EVERY GODDAMN character 3 different names! I’m 38 years old and felt like taking down notes to remind me who is who for the first 20%. Just me? Alright then.
-Heroine was EVIE, short for EVANGELINE but everyone was calling her EVAN.
-Hero is MAG. Short for Daniel MAGNUSSON. Heroine and loved ones calls him DANNY.
-Secondary character, Lottie, is called MAC. Cause her last name is MACALISTER.
Another thing, it takes more than a collection of Chucks or cool tees, one mention of D&D and that one odd time someone took apart and rebuilt a radio at eight years old to make them super smart and dorky in my eyes. Maybe show me in the book, present text what makes the heroine a nerd? Because I FLOVE nerdy heroines but sorry to say… Evan was not it?
Dream Maker wasn’t necessarily bad, it just failed to keep me engaged in the long run. I decided to DNF out of boredom more than out of hate, which leaves a possibility I’ll try to finish it later on. Who knows?
Kristen Ashley is the New York Times bestselling author of over sixty romance novels including the Rock Chick, Colorado Mountain, Dream Man, Chaos, Unfinished Hero, The ’Burg, Magdalene, Fantasyland, The Three, Ghost and Reincarnation, Moonlight and Motor Oil and Honey series along with several standalone novels. She’s a hybrid author, publishing titles both independently and traditionally, her books have been translated in fourteen languages and she’s sold over three million books.
Kristen’s novel, Law Man, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award for best Romantic Suspense. Her independently published title Hold On was nominated for RT Book Reviews best Independent Contemporary Romance and her traditionally published title Breathe was nominated for best Contemporary Romance. Kristen’s titles Motorcycle Man, The Will, Ride Steady (which won the Reader’s Choice award from Romance Reviews) and The Hookup all made the final rounds for Goodreads Choice Awards in the Romance category.
Kristen, born in Gary and raised in Brownsburg, Indiana, was a fourth-generation graduate of Purdue University. Since, she has lived in Denver, the West Country of England, and now she resides in Phoenix. She worked as a charity executive for eighteen years prior to beginning her independent publishing career. She currently writes full-time.
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