Review : Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : Dirty Little Secret
Author : Jennifer Echols
Publication Date : July 16th 2013
Publisher : MTV Books
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Bailey wasn’t always a wild child and the black sheep of her family. She used to play fiddle and tour the music circuit with her sister, Julie, who sang and played guitar. That ended when country music execs swooped in and signed Julie to a solo deal. Never mind that Julie and Bailey were a duet, or that Bailey was their songwriter. The music scouts wanted only Julie, and their parents were content to sit by and let her fulfill her dreams while Bailey’s were hushed away.

Bailey has tried to numb the pain and disappointment over what could have been. And as Julie’s debut album is set to hit the charts, her parents get fed up with Bailey’s antics and ship her off to granddad’s house in Nashville. Playing fiddle in washed-up tribute groups at the mall, Bailey meets Sam, a handsome and oh-so-persuasive guitarist with his own band. He knows Bailey’s fiddle playing is just the thing his band needs to break into the industry. But this life has broken Bailey’s heart once before. She isn’t sure she’s ready to let Sam take her there again…

Personal Thoughts

Jennifer Echols' books and I have a hot and cold relationship. Some of her books, I adore ; Going Too Far, Forget You and Such a Rush while some, I strongly dislike ; Love Story and The One I Want. Unfortunately, Dirty Little Secret happens to fall in the latter section. Although the book was brimming with promise, the infuriating characters made this book fail in my eyes.

When the reader first meets Bailey, the main character of Dirty Little Secret, she's rife with sadness. Her sister has been picked up by a recording company and they ask her to have nothing to do with her older sister, in fear of destroying her career before it's even started. Sympathizing with Bailey was easy. She and her sister had been close and to have their relationship be ripped apart like that was causing her a lot of pain. What was worse was that her parents were willingly going along with the record company's plan and Bailey was simply abandoned, in a sense. After everything that her family did to her, Bailey didn't really hold a grudge against them. Whenever they needed her, she dashed to their aid and that is what made Bailey a beautiful character. She refused to let go of her family even though they had caused her a lot of pain. Over the course of the book, we get to see Bailey grow up, learning to stand up for herself and for her dreams, without crushing her younger sister.

Dirty Little Secret's greatest flaw comes in the form of the love interest, Sam. At first, he exuded the personality of a sweet, charming and caring guy. However, as the story progressed, I started to dislike him and this dislike had intensified by ten-fold by the end of the book. When Sam finds out that Bailey's sister has been picked up by a recording company, he basically demands that she go back to her parents and beg them to let them have a relationship with her sister, so that he and his band could get an in with the recording company. He even went as far as calling her selfish for refusing to heed him. He then proceeds to sleep with Bailey, in the hopes of manipulating her and when she once again refuses, he breaks up with her, merely minutes after they have slept together. I'm not sure why he was supposed to be a love interest. There was nothing in him that made me want to swoon over him. In fact, to me, he came across as a selfish jerk and I wanted Bailey to run far away from him. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The other band members weren't likeable either. Charlotte acted like a jealous ex-girlfriend for almost the entire book and the other band member (whose name I cannot seem to remember) was forgettable and underdeveloped.

The prospect of country music was what initially made me want to read this book. While the book was abundant with country music references, there were times I found some terms and elements of the book quite confusing because I know next to nothing about terms in music and they weren't exactly explained in the book. In addition, there didn't seem to be a definite plot in the book which did make reading this book quite boring. As I've mentioned above, the romance was a complete disaster and I wanted nothing to do with it. Just reading about it made me cringe. This was one case where I was hoping the couple did not have their HEA because of Sam. I just found it really hard to believe that after all that Sam pulls on Bailey, he actually loved her for who she was and not for who she was related to. The one highlight for me in Dirty Little Secret was the relationship between Julie and Bailey. I wish this sibling relationship had been given more importance than the romantic relationship. It would have made this book a lot better than it was.

I don't know if it was how Sam was supposed to be portrayed, but he was the reason why this book was a disaster for me. I'm not sure who to recommend this book to exactly, but if you can see past Sam's selfishness, then this might actually work for you. 

Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 3/5

**Overall rating : 2.5/5**

Thank you to Edelweiss and MTV Books for the e-ARC of Dirty Little Secret.