Review: Locked in Silence by Sloane Kennedy

Locked in Silence (Pelican Bay #1) by Sloan Kennedy
Self-Published
Novel: 284pgs

3.5 Pants Off

Blurb: I've spent years hoping someone would finally hear me. It's easier not to try anymore...
Ten years after leaving his small Minnesota hometown in his rearview mirror for what Nolan Grainger was sure would be the last time, life has decided to throw the talented musician a curveball and send him back to the town he lived in but was never really home.

At twenty-eight, Nolan has traveled the world as a successful concert violinist with some of the best symphonies in the country. But success breeds envy, and when Nolan's benefactor and lover decides Nolan has flown high enough, he cruelly clips Nolan's wings. The betrayal and ensuing scandal leaves the violinist's career in shambles and with barely enough money to start fresh somewhere beyond his vindictive ex's powerful reach. But just as he's ready to get his life back on track, Nolan gets the call he's been dreading.

After a stroke leaves his father a partial invalid, duty-bound Nolan returns to Pelican Bay and a life he's spent years trying to forget. When he's forced to use the last of his own money to keep from losing the family home, desperation has him turning to the one man he'd hoped never to see again...

Even if I could speak, there wouldn't be anyone there to listen...
Pelican Bay's golden boy, Dallas Kent, had the quintessential perfect life. Smart, gorgeous, and popular, the baseball phenom was well on his way to a life filled with fame and fortune. But more importantly, he had a one-way ticket out of Pelican Bay and far away from the family who used love as currency and whose high expectations were the law of the land. But a stormy night, sharp highway curve and one bad decision changed everything, leaving Dallas with nothing.    

Because the accident that took his parents, his future and his crown as the boy who could do no wrong, also stole his voice.

Despised for the horrific wreck that ended the lives of two of Pelican Bay's most respected residents, Dallas has retreated to a secluded stretch of land where he's found refuge in a menagerie of unwanted animals that don't care that he once had the world at his feet or that he'll never speak again.

But when the quiet, bookish boy he wasn't allowed to notice in school suddenly reappears ten years later at Dallas's wildlife rehab center in desperate need of a job, Dallas is thrust back into a world he's worked hard to escape.

Dallas's silence was supposed to send Nolan scurrying, but what if Nolan ends up being the one person who finally hears him?

Will two men who've been fleeing from the past finally come home to Pelican Bay for good or will the silence drive them apart forever? 

Review

 LOCKED IN A TOWN WITH A BUNCH OF IDIOTS...

 I am both in love and hate with this book. My very first time reading this author, and I have to say it won’t be my last. The story really was entertaining and I found my self not being able to put it down. While I really liked it, I still got a few issues… 

Nolan left his backwards small town behind and became a talented sought after violinist. He’s lived an incredible life for the past 10yrs, being in the spotlight and being someone that matters. But trusting the wrong person has left him with nothing, and now he has to return home with his tail between his legs and eating humble pie. The last thing he ever wanted was to return to a place that was a torment through his childhood and to run into one of his tormentors  (a loose discription). 

Dallas was once the golden boy with a bright future ahead of him. He had the looks, charms, and money backing him. Until a tragic accident leaves most of his family dead and his voice lost. Now he’s the pariah of his town, so he moves alone while running an animal sanctuary. Isolation is his best friend and he liked it, or so he thought… 

Nolan and Dallas both with their own hurts to heal and town so dead set in their ways I’m surprised they didn’t mow them all down. Their coming together is tentative at first and then explosively sweet. They come to rely on each other and in the process saved each other as well. 

Alright, the book is all sweet/cozy and sh*t but let me tell you the anger I felt at everyone in the damn town and at Nolan/Dallas for being so damn passive. Nolan’s parents were a piece of work especially his mom and there was just no redeeming her for me. You know what, let’s just get rid of the whole damn town. So backwards, so malicious, and so stupid x2. 

I loved that Nolan and Dallas got their HEA but it was just too neat for my liking. The story was excellent until it was wrapped up in a nice little bow. I understand the need for happy endings but it works when it feels believable and this felt like tying up loose ends to make the reader happy. I would have been quite content if Nolan/Dallas decided to burn everyone to the ground. But you know they were happy without hate in their hearts and so on and so forth (should have made those spineless biaches suffer). 

Overall, I liked it, would have loved it if not for that neat ending. I will be checking out more of the authors work and I am looking forward to more in the series. 

SideNote- That blurb be telling the whole damn story and that cover has nothing to do with anything...