cover image Play

Play

Kylie Scott. St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-250-05237-7

Scott’s second Stage Dive contemporary (after Lick) combines rippling abs, power chords, and sheer delightful improbability. Anne Rollins is content with her quiet, stable life until it’s shaken by betrayal and shattered by a chance meeting with drummer Malcolm Ericson. And Malcolm is the life of the party until he undergoes a sudden change in temperament. Then, without explanation or permission, Mal moves into Anne’s apartment and co-opts her life. His turn to playful domesticity hides a secret from everyone, including cautious, suspicious Anne. Scott has created characters both charmingly mundane and larger than life. The stakes are so ridiculous that the intent seems more comic than dramatic. Tumbling through the world of rock-and-roll, Scott delivers on the promise of tenderness and wild times, hardly pausing to construct the hilarious lead-up to a sudden, nonsensical resolution. (Sept.)