I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of this book since it sounds like it’s focal point is a hard rock back, but i decided to give it a read since i’m a HUGE fan of series (vs. individual stories) that can sustain my insterest for a while.

So in Backstage Pass, we are introduced first to Myrna who is a professor (has her PhD) in Human Sexuality and she’s just given a lecture at a conference.  I don’t know about anyone else, but the first thought that comes to mind in a story that you know is going to turn erotic, is ‘naughty professor’ and with a name like Myrna, you can get all these images into your head.  Once you meet you, you come to find that she’s clearly less bookish than she would seem with a name like Myrna, and that she’s in fact got a rock edge to her, and included that edge into her presentation with the riffs from a well known back ‘The Sinners’.  un-beknownst to her, this love of the band will come in handy.

She’s walking through her hotel on that same night and hears a commotion in the lounge, and finds not at all what she’s expecting – the usual conference goers, but instead, the same band that she  really enjoys – THE SINNERS.  They are drunk, and loud and exactly what she needed to see.  She finds her courage and walks over to them and the rest is history.

She’s hit on by Sed – who is the sexy lead singer of the group, Eric, the drummer, Trey and Jace are doing their thing, and Brian is soo drunk that he can’t even keep a thought flowing in his mind that even makes sense.  I think that we all know what happens here right?  she’s drawn to all of them, but is able to disway the attention of the guys that are making the most overt passes at her, and some how decides that she’s going to come to Brian’s rescue after he throws up all over the place.  She invites him up to her room for a hangover cure, although that’s not quite what Brian thinks when he’s invited up to her room.

After a night of nothingness – Myrna won’t have sex on the ‘first/second date’ and Brian really is too drunk to do much aside from pass out, they find themselves in each others arms in the morning for some AMAZING sex.  (of course).  Instead of going back home that morning, she throws caution to the wind, and joins the band onto their next tour stop.  Never a good move for someone who’s supposed to have a respectable job…but when there’s good sex, all logic goes out the window.  So Myran joins the band to their next stop, enjoys mind blowing sex and then has to find her way back home the next day to get bck to the real world.

Now…to back up a second, throughout this story, Myr has some internal strife going on.  She’s been married before, to a man who clearly thought her a whore and was apt to tell her this all the time.  The issue here is that no, she was not a whore, but she is a sex professor and of course wants to make things less vanilla and much spicier.  Her husband took that to mean that she was probably cheating on him in order to get these thoughts/positions and all this experience and it certainly crushed her a bit.  On top of that, he started to drink A LOT and as a result, almost killed her with his rage.

So, we’re fast forwarding to her present day life…where she’s a bit gun shy about emotions, and men, and how she’s kind of even gone into hiding a bit so that she doesn’t ever have to deal with this asshole again.  This of course becomes a problem for her when she finds that she LOVES having her ‘relationship’ with Brian because she can be as uninhibited as she wants, she doesn’t have to worry about being considered dirty or whorish becuase that’s part of what just works between them.

Life comes in the way of what they have…Myr has to figure things out professionally which gives her more of a reason to stick around the band and Brian, but that doesn’t address any of her personal struggles and that’s what keeps the book moving.  It’s never easy, and it’s never clear what’s going to happen between Myr and Brian and the rest of the band for that matter.

The good thing about this first book is that the Olivia Cunning really has given us a view of all of the band members, and we see them for more than just the instruments that they play.  They have emotions and quirks and I can only hope that we get to see more of them and all this inter personal stuff in the future books in the series.

Definitely pick it up – there’s nothing timid or quiet/shy about the eroticism in the story.  you won’t be disappointed.