Title: Beneath the Stain part 2
Series: Beneath the Stain Serial
Author: Amy Lane
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Short (71pgs)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (5th September 2014)
Heat: Moderate
Heart: ♥♥♥♥♥ 5 Hearts
Reviewer: Tams
Blurb: Trav Ford doesn’t like strings and he doesn’t like messes. Coming off of a messy breakup, Trav is grimly determined to keep his life absolutely pristine. When Trav is asked to take over the management of Outbreak Monkey, his first order of business is to clean up their act- and that includes shipping the youngest, most troubled member off to detox and rehab before Mackey Sander’s life choices kill him.
But Mackey didn’t become an addict overnight, and it’s going to take more than one trip to rehab to fix him up. When an act of violence destroys Mackey’s struggling equilibrium, Trav is going to find that messy isn’t so hard to escape – not when it’s wrapping its mess around Trav’s heart.
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Review: In the first instalment of this serial, Mackey and his band had hit it big and were on their way to LA. Unfortunately the cost of his success was their guitarist and Mackey’s long time lover, Grant, who chose to stay behind. Mackey only made it so far with the flashbacks of fame before Grant stepped in and helped him. Now he has to fend for himself in the big, bad, ugly town that chews up and spits out rock stars for breakfast. Mackey isn’t fairing so well.
Trav Ford is an ex MP and current hard ass in the entertainment industry. His boss describes his attitude best when he tells Trav, “I think the reason you became an MP is to give people a valid reason to hate you immediately.” Fresh out of a breakup, Trav throws himself into his new job as the new manager for Mackey’s band. Learning that young Mackey is gay isn’t nearly as shocking as Mackey’s current appearance and state of mind. A diet of booze, pills and coke (and I don’t mean the cola!) have left Mackey’s already thin frame looking fragile and sickly. The only thing keeping him sane right now is the stack of journals full of his songs that balance precariously next to his unkempt, stained sheets.
Trav takes charge, ships Mackey off to rehab and lays down the ground rules. When Trav first meet Mackey and the band he was indignant with how they lived. But Mackey has a way of getting under your skin, and soon enough all Trav wants is to see him get better. And Mackey seems to understand the need to stay clean, but trouble is just around the corner, trouble Mackey may not bounce back from this time around.
This series is going to be the death of me! Lane’s Stain is very raw and intense, showing the darker side of one young man’s journey to fame. I went from wanting to ring Mackey’s neck, turn him over my knee and spank the shit out of him (and not in a good way!) to screaming NO at my kindle with that ending. It’s quite hard to wait a week in between each part of this serial. And that ending! I’m pretty sure what is coming next, but Lane is a master story teller, so she could very well take a complete one eighty from what I’m envisioning is about to happen.
I almost want to tell you to wait until you can read this one in its entirety, but that is over a month away. Better to get your weekly dose of insanity with Mackey and the band than wait it out. Either way, I’m hooked, I’ll be sitting here with bated breath until next week when I get to see what happens in part three!