Review: Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman

Touching Melody

(Forever First # 1)

By: RaShelle Workman

Pub. Date: May 14, 2013

Publisher: Polished Pen Press

Pages: 161

Source: Netgalley

I received this galley in exchange for an honest review.

Maddie Martin's first weekend at college is nothing like she's used to. It's wild, like the wilderness on which the University of Bellam Springs sits. Roped into going to a fraternity party, she literally runs into Kyle Hadley. The boy she's loved since she was nine. The boy she promised all of her firsts to. But that was before his father killed her parents.

Determined to stay away from him, she throws herself into her music. Practicing piano eases her heavy heart, calms the sadness, and pushes away images of Kyle's face.

Until it doesn't.

Her music professor asks her to play a duet for their annual Winter Gala. Doing so means she'll be assured another full ride scholarship. It's an opportunity she can't pass up.

But Kyle is the other half of the duet. And that means hours and hours of practicing.

Weeks of seclusion - just the two of them. And it's more than just music. It's passion like Maddie never believed was possible.

The inevitable happens. She falls in love with him all over again.

But, will loving him be enough to erase all the hate in her heart for his father? Can she look at him, and not see the evil in his family tree?

And maybe it's all a set up. Maybe Kyle is only pretending to care so he can finish what his father started, and kill her too.

Based on the synopsis, I was expecting something different. I spent the first few chapters confused because I thought that Kyle knew what his dad did to Maddie's parents. Once I realized he had no idea what his father had done, it all started to make a lot more sense. Kyle really had no idea why his best friend wanted nothing to do with him, but he kept on hoping that one day she would come back to him. I enjoyed the connection between Kyle and Maddie. Both had sad pasts-Maddie was the one who found her murdered parents and Kyle grew up without a mom and an abusive dad. They definitely needed each other and I hated that it took Maddie so long to be honest with Kyle.

Maddie was a character that I could not connect with. So many times I wanted to stop reading because of how much Maddie annoyed me. One minute she wanted to be with Kyle, the next she freaked out, passed out, and wanted nothing to do with him. This happened way to many times in the story and I could not take her seriously and I stopped caring about her.

I had some problems with the writing as well. The story is told in the POV of both Maddie and Kyle, which is something I always love, but since I hated Maddie, I didn't like half the book. Kyle was written a lot better and I enjoyed his parts much more.

Touching Melody is not one of my favorite books that I read recently. It wasn't horrible, but there were a lot of things that I didn't like about it. There were too many plot holes, or things that just didn't work. The story did get a lot better as the story went on, and the ending was absolutely adorable.