Review: The Rebound - J.R. Rogue

The Rebound

by J.R. Rogue

Published: June 13, 2019

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Some love affairs aren’t meant for the public eye. Some love affairs won’t survive the fallout.

Calliope das Dores is not the perfect rebound, even if her name means "muse". She is not who I should be running to. But I want her anyway.

She keeps telling me my squeaky-clean image can’t handle the scandal, but this want between us is not black and white, and it never will be.

I don’t care that she’s my uncle’s wife—or that she shares my last name. After finding my girlfriend in bed with my uncle at the end of my worldwide tour, the truth is clear: Calliope and I are the only family we both have left now.

In the beginning, after flying to the Ozarks to tell her of our partners’ sins, I tell myself it’s just so she won’t hear it from someone who would lie to her. But my manager and best friend say I’ve wanted her since I was a kid, and now, finally, she is allowed to want me back.

She says we can get over them with each other—even if it’s in secret, for a summer—but I have to promise her I won’t fall in love. It’s not part of the plan. The details in our past deny us of any future we could have had.

What starts out as a rebound for both of us eventually consumes me. But the flames don’t reach her.

My muse is consumed, too. But not with me.

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Review

5 Stars

Y'all, I love me a good, sexy, angsty book, but nothing beats a book with all of those qualities AND the added bonus of being about a forbidden love affair. J.R. Rogue gives us this with The Rebound. Featuring Sean, the singer all girls are fans of, and Calliope, his Uncle's wife, we get to know about this couple that comes together in a time of loneliness, of grief, of anger, and of long buried feelings. Sean's girlfriend and his uncle have been having their own affair and in his shock Sean runs to the only family he has left, into Calliope's comforting arms in the Ozarks. It's meant to be for the summer, to be a secret, but all things come into the light at some point.

"She felt something then. When he touched her, when he hurt her. She felt. And she didn't want to let go."

I knew I was in for an age-gap romance, for a forbidden relationship with an "aunt", and of course I knew there'd be angst, but nothing prepared me for the feeling J.R. Rogue put me through. The Rebound tells of devastation, of coming-of-age, of the lengths a person will go to in order to survive. It tells of love and loss and fear and anger. It's about life and the quality of living that we dream about, but can't attain. It's a book that took me deep into my feelings, into those dark corners that authors rarely reach, while also making me see the strength in climbing from those depths to reach humanity and kindness and life. It isn't about The Rebound, it's about what the rebound revealed, about the secrets and lies that had been holding them all captive for far too long.

"People come into your lives in seasons. I will be a short one for her. One of those falls you barely feel, before winter grips you."

I devoured this book so quickly, I was in love with how J.R. Rogue paired her poetic prose with a gritty story that readers may shy away from. It's worth putting your usual rules for books away, it's worth taking a blind chance on. It's one of those books that's real, that can hit close to home, but it's done magnificently. In all the darkness there is a story of hope and love and the human experience. The Rebound will consume you, swallow you hole, and it will stay with you long after you read the last word on the final page.