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My dog is sad. The weather is beautiful but I’ve been in bed the past two days because I’m an American. If I’d been from Scotland, I would never have started talking to that nice young family on the ferry, let alone gotten in range of their adorable germ-spewing toddler. So I’ve been lying in bed for the past two days, watching submarines sailing by.

Submarine watching is an activity I embraced with great fervor as a California teenager parked in a remote car with an appropriately enthusiastic partner. As an older lady, sick in bed, with a depressed dog as company? Not so much.

When there are no submarines, I watch old eighties RomComs and cry, mostly at the thought that I once sported shoulder pads, big eyeglasses, even bigger hair. (The eighties were dark, dark fashion times…) The dog has been lying next to me in full-on Underfoot Moping Mode, one of her few documented life skills.

A truly world-class Underfoot Mope requires mastery of the three P’s—Placement for maximum owner-tripping, Power-sighing, and the Pathetic glance. The successful Underfoot Mope is accompanied by explosive sighs which register on seismographs in neighboring states, and by reproachful looks which say, “I love you even though you are a pathetic, puppy-torturing excuse for a human being.”

What I say as I flail for balance after stumbling over the lump of depressed canine which has materialized in my path is probably not appropriate for a family blog. And what I say when I realize that she has expressed her opinion that I am not meeting her doggie needs by going to each bathroom and chewing up every single roll of toilet paper in the house? No, we really don’t need to go there.

But the good thing about being sick in bed is that I also got to read Two Nights in Houston, a lovely little novella from Sofia Grey.  It involved my two favorite supporting characters from her last novel, made almost no demands on me, and tied up their loose ends in a most satisfying way.

Blurb: Two Nights in Houston by Sofia Grey (book 1.5 of Event Horizon series)

Rock God Alex is in love with Sylvie, the bass guitarist in his band. Alex longs to tell her how he feels, but with the change and tragedy that have shaken her world, it never feels like the right time.

Event Horizon’s two-night layover in Houston could either be the perfect opportunity, or the mistake that pushes her away.

 
  • Book Title:  Two Nights in Houston (Event Horizon Series #1.5)
  • Author: Sofia Grey
  • Genre: Rock star romance
  • Publisher: Acelette Press (10 March, 2017)
  • Pages: 59

Review: Two Nights in Houston by Sofia Grey (book 1.5 of Event Horizon series)

My two favorite supporting characters from Lying in Shadows (Book 1 in series) were Alex (A.J.) and Sylvie (Sizzle). So I was happy to hear their stories would continue with this mid-series novella.

Romance author Sofia Grey spends her days managing projects in the corporate world and her nights hanging out with wolf shifters and alpha males. She devours pretty much anything in the fiction line, but she prefers her romances to be hot, and her heroes to have hidden depths. When writing, she enjoys peeling back the layers to expose her characters’ flaws and always makes them work hard for their happy endings. She says,  “Music is interwoven so tightly into my writing that I can’t untangle the two. Either I’m listening to a playlist on my iPod, have music seeping from my laptop speakers, or there’s a song playing in my head – sometimes on auto-repeat. Check out my image collections on Pinterest and my music playlists on Spotify. “

Author Sofia Grey keeps the short story on track by forgoing some of her usual multi-genre techniques. In Book 1, rock superstar Alex is trying to recover from the death of his brother and fellow Event Horizon band member. He meets Sylvie when she and his other new friends become targets of a brilliant and merciless foe. They emerge from that conflict with both emotional and physical wounds. Alex realizes that he’s in love with Sylvie, but worries that she still grieves for her lost lover. Sylvie, now the newest member of the band, is unprepared for the rock star world, and worried about whether she belongs there.

Sofia Grey’s trademark mix of solidly realized supporting characters and flawed main characters struggling to cope with devastating personal failures and losses is the fuel that turns this story from boy-meets-girl/they-fight/they-make-up into an attention grabbing little tale that includes humor, romance, and very human characters.

This little novella is much less complex than one of Sofia Grey’s full length books, but it delivers a nice mix of three-dimensional characters, satisfying story, and a clever use of the Texan setting that had me chuckling.

**I received this book for free from the publisher or author to facilitate an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**

NOTE: Also please check out my review of Lying in Shadows, Book 1, here.)

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