Our Secret Song – by Emily C. Childs

Rating – ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Genre – Sweet Romance

Tropes – Rock Star, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Sweet, Nerdy Girl/Hot Guy, Best Friend’s SIster

Triggers – addiction, infidelity, abuse

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Our Secret Song by Emily C. Childs is a book that caught me off guard. I bought this as a discounted book bundle after seeing a great Facebook video ad several times. The ad was compelling, and I decided to take the plunge. Who wouldn’t be intrigued by the idea of a rock star childhood friend coming to save you at his best friend’s (your brother’s) request after you’d been jilted by your fiancé? I mean seriously… got me hook. Line. And Sinker.

So, I took the bait, clicked the link to Ms. Child’s website, and bought the bundle she was advertising. I downloaded the files and sent them to my Kindle.

Our Secret Song was not the first book I read from that bundle. However, I will review that book later. I wanted to discuss Our Secret Song because this book caught me totally off guard.

Ya’ll, this book is CLEAN! I mean, there’s no sex at all!

I expected a rock star book to have edgy language and sex scenes, but this book did not. I was so surprised that I went back to the website and looked all over the bundle page to see if I’d missed a trope or genre description that should have informed me about the romance sub-genre I was experiencing. You can find that bundle here.

Nothing indicates that this book or this bundle contains only sweet romances. Emily C. Childs was an unfamiliar author, and I did not go to Amazon and research the books, or her, before buying this bundle. I was also not familiar with the publishing site that hosts her books.

Whoever is the marketing genius behind these ad reels is a bit misleading. They aren’t misleading about the story but about the content. Bravo for creating such a compelling advertisement, but there should be a clearly stated genre on the website for the bundle if your click is going to take you directly to a book bundle and not the individual book. A person shouldn’t have to go to The Zon to figure out what kind of book they are considering, and if I were a reader who likes explicitly ONLY spicy books, I would have been very disappointed.

Now, I’m not bothered by owning and reading a sweet romance. I read clean/sweet books a lot. I am not the kind of reader who must have sex in a novel, nor am I a reader who shies away from a steamy scene or less mainstream topics. If a story is excellent, I’ll love it either way. In all seriousness, though, there must be more transparency about what a consumer buys.

Let’s move on to the review.

Our Secret Song is the story of Alexis (Al) and Bridger. Bridger is the frontman for the highly successful hard rock band Perfectly Broken. Alexis is a grad student working on her master’s in Library Science. When Alexis is jilted by her fiancé the day before her wedding, her brother Parker, a Major League Baseball player, asks his best friend Bridger to find her and give her a place to stay until he can get back in town.

Alexis and Bridger are oil and fire. They know each other’s darkest secrets. He knows that he’s been in love with her for years. She’s protecting her heart because of his former lifestyle. Still, they walk through some tough times to emerge.

This is a very typical rom-com format; however, rather than flat, bland characters, Ms. Childs has developed such depth by confronting the seedy side of the music industry with clarity and empathy for anyone involved in the journey of a person with a substance use disorder. For a rock star romance, she has created such a family out of the band members and their recording label that you can see how well Bridger can successfully fight his demons and learn to be open about his struggle and journey.  

I thoroughly enjoyed Our Secret Song, and if you are looking for a clean romance, you will love Emily C. Childs. As a bonus, she does provide you with a link for a steamy scene between the MCs that is separate from her book. I have not read that because I wanted to be able to review without that scene in mind. I appreciate that Ms. Childs acknowledges that some readers wish to have heat in their romances.

Our Secret Song received 4 stars from me because the story is so strong, and her characters are highly developed. The deception surrounding the sub-genre of this book without going to, in my opinion, extreme lengths to research a book before knowing what sub-genre you will be reading deserves a loss of 1 star.