Name: Melody's Key
ISBN: 9781533430212

Dallas Coryell

"His eyes settled on her...piercing green embers of flame that revealed the ferocity of his pain and passion, yet still shrouded him under veils of ever deepening mystery that made every ounce of her ache to unravel him."Tegan Lockwood's dreams were dead, sacrificed on the noble altar of duty before they ever had a chance to live. Her entire existence was disappearing into the abyss of apathy as she labored her days away keeping her family's struggling business alive. There would be no emotion, no color, no beauty in her life. That is, until a mysterious visitor begins to draw her out of the darkness of her past towards something that will challenge the boundaries of her world, and unlock the most deeply held secrets of her heart.

Melody's Key

Nicole Lambert

NOTE: I was given this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this book, I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that the genre it fell into was romance, which also happens to be my least favorite genre. With that being said, I could hardly put this book down.

This entire book rode like one huge emotional roller coaster to the point where it led me to encounter many sleepless nights as I fought to read one more chapter. Even if you're not a fan of the overall romance and contemporary genre like I am, you will love this book.

One of the things I enjoyed about this book was that the author crafted an original spin on an overall-cliche story line to the point where the book in all honesty didn't seem that much cliche. I found myself relating to the characters of Tegan and Mason a lot, for I also happen to be an introvert who at times finds it difficult to let people in, and in the past, I did used to write songs (not so much anymore, since my production quality was pretty minuscule). I also enjoyed how Tegan was able to see past her own prejudices of guys like Mason in order to see how Mason truly was.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely. This book is a great example of why for the longest of time, I only read self-published books. As an author myself who originally started out as self-published and who knows a great deal about how the publishing business operates, I can honestly say that when Mason was talking about the corporate-driven record label he was forced to be miserable with, it in a way reminded me of the business of traditional publishing in the sense that traditional publishers don't tend to publish based on quality but rather based on what sells. That's the main reason why I've always loved reading self-published works, which was why I loved this book even more.

Candyce Kirk

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
It took me awhile to finish this book, but that wasn't because it wasn't good. I actually really enjoyed this book. Life was just a bit busy.
The beautiful setting in England made me want to live where the main character lived. It sounded beautiful and I could imagine myself sitting outside somewhere by the water with a book. I loved Tegan's family and the bond they had. Even though they had financial issues no one in the family minded being there and helping out. Tegan even gave up her dream to stay home and help out. The love letters Tegan found were a really nice touch and I liked that she found comfort in them after all that had happened to her. It was a definite bonus to be able to read some of those letters in the book.
I wasn't sure of Mason in the beginning. He kind of seemed like the typical popstar at first, but Tegan didn't give him much of a chance in the beginning to prove that. That irritated me at times. He turned out to be a sweet and caring person and was not even close to being selfish or arrogant. He tried opening Tegan up to using her talents and not being afraid to let people in. The fact that they didn't fall head over heels for eachother right away made me happy. You actually saw their feelings develop as the story went on. 
There were only a couple of things that bothered me about this book. Sometimes things were described in a bit too much detail. Things that could be said in a sentence or two were stretched out. At times that was beautiful, but at others it wasn't necessary. I also didn't like that we don't find out exactly who Tegan's best friend was dating or what made him so upset. That kind of left me hanging. And I missed Mason's point of view. It was still a good story, but I like when I can read both sides of the story.

All in all, I want to thank the author for letting me review this book. I really enjoyed reading it.

Jackie

** spoiler alert **
           If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting a lot when I went into reading this. I was excited when the author approached me about reading and reviewing his book (and even more so when I found out it was a romance novel) due to the fact that I’ve only had that happen to me one other time before this story. I’m incredibly ecstatic that I took a chance on Melody’s Key! I’ve never been moved to tears by  a book out of sheer happiness – and trust me, there were A LOT of tears – and I’m rather proud to say that this was the first one. The songs that appear in this book are also actual songs on the author’s youtube channel (scroll up to the link section and you can find it there) which I highly recommend listening to while you read… If you’re like me, that might move you to tears as well because his voice is phenomenal. Okay, back to the review I’m supposed to be doing…. Also, I’m apologizing ahead of time for all of the rambliness that will make up this review, my brain is currently yelling, “You loved this book! Good luck putting how much you loved it into words. Oh, and you’re heart is crying tears of joy again!” Apparently sick me tries to be funny and fails miserably.

Have you guys ever found a piece of literature that just connects with you? That’s how this book was for me which seems to be rather rare lately, you simply know that you NEED to read more. The main character is a girl named Tegan who chose to defer from attending university to help out her family where they live in England – have I mentioned how much I adore stories set in any part of the UK? Anyway, I quickly found out that this particular character and I have a few things in common so maybe that’s why I found this story so easy to get into.

Let’s move onto the love interest of the story: Mason Keane. He’s the pop star that Tegan misjudged at first due to how he’s presented to the outside world but, of course, he’s not really like that. I suppose that one is a tiny bit of a cliché but I live for romantic clichés. This character has honestly given me even higher expectations when it comes to men, so keep that in mind going into this book, with how he interacts with Tegan. I especially loved their first meeting, the looks I got when I burst out laughing which turned into smiling like a dummy during their second meeting. The story only gets sweeter from there while Tegan and Mason both stumble over their feelings until they eventually fall together.

The climax of the story is where I had to set this aside for the night, I had a minor flashback to high school (and a few recent books) and nearly had a slight meltdown when it dawned on me that while most of the time the climax will happen and things start to go downhill, they usually turn into some type of happy ending… However, there are some that just stay downhill and you’re left with this broken heart that was poured into these characters and there was no way that I was going to be able to face that one. Fortunately, when I picked it back up, I realized that that was an irrational fear on my part and I have no idea why I just admitted that… because I guarantee that 99.9% of you don’t care about that part unless you are like me and need the reassurance that the story won’t end in angst.

I do wish that we could have another story for these two, see how they’re doing after the end of the book, because they’re story meant a bit more to me than I expected. I think this book is absolutely perfect for the hopeless romantics out there or the people who aren’t really sure if love truly does exist anymore, I know I sure don’t know too many couples that stay together or truly love each other which is quite despairing and really only makes me want to escape in my daydreams again. Maybe I’m reading a bit too into this one but, to me, it’s a reminder that there’s no need to settle for someone, that if you hold out long enough there is someone out there for you. I guess I just really needed Melody’s Key to be able to see that again.  So thank you, Dallas Coryell for your amazing story and thank you so much for choosing to contact me to read your book, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express how much your story ended up meaning to me, because apparently I just turn into a rambling mess of a human being who turned this review into…whatever this was? Anyway, I hope someone out there enjoyed reading my thoughts over this phenomenal love story.

I can’t wait to see what else you come up with if you choose to publish another story.

Janne Janssens

3,5 stars.
First of all I want to thank the author Dallas Coryell for giving me a free copy of his beautiful book Melody’s Key in exchange of an honest review.
And I will be honest, this gift won’t influence my opinion. Nor did I read other reviews so that my opinion would be mine only and would not be formed by others. 

I will rarely choose a romantic book myself. So I started to read sceptically. I needed a few pages to let go of my scepticism. It all started pretty cliché. The main character is presented, as is her family. This is all done very descriptively. I love it more when the characters are presented through an action.

But from the second half of chapter three the story began to unfold. Time after time I thought, "This is predictable ..." and then it didn’t happen or something else happened. That surprised me. When I was half through the book I began to notice it was getting more and more difficult to me to put the book away. Every free minute I grabbed the book, which is obviously a good sign. Dallas Coryell has a smooth writing style that keeps turning you page after page. Even though English isn’t my native language, I had no difficulty to read the story, so I can also recommend it to non-English speaking readers.

The author likes long descriptions. Me too. He realy takes his time to let a situation unfold itself. However, sometimes it took too long for something to happen. At other times he suddenly makes such a big jump in time that it felt strange. (If you want to know why, scroll down to the part that contains spoilers.)

However, this shouldn’t stop you from reading this book. I really enjoyed reading it and I recommend you to read it too!

Enjoy!


THIS PART CONTAINS SPOILERS:




I will explain further why this time leap felt strange: after the first kiss of Tegan and Mason we jump to a scene where Tegan and Mason are suddenly full of passion for each other. They secretly meet and discover each other’s body.
It felt strange to see Tegan, who doesn’t open up to someone easily, suddenly so loose. It would have been more acceptable to me if after the first kiss, also the second kiss was described. After the first kiss, people sometimes still have the uncertainty of whether the other person also finds it worth repeating this kiss or not.
Even though the love between these two people is obvious, Tegan seemed to me a sceptical and insecure person who doesn’t throw herself headlong into a romantic adventure. She didn’t do this at first, but why suddenly after that first kiss?

Furthermore, I didn’t see the added value of the letter story of Violet and Jonathon. The mainnstory would have been at least as good without this second story.

But as I said, don’t let this stop you from reading this book! For those who love romantic books that make you long for a prince, or at least a really cute boy like Mason, or for a girl that doesn’t know herself how beautiful she is, go ahead and enjoy this story!

Thanks you, Dallas Coryell, to share this beautiful story with me.
Good luck with your further career as a writer!

Amy Buckle

This novel is centred around a girl called Tegan Lockwood. Tegan is ambitious and talented, but she is held back by her obligation to help keep her family business alive. Then, one summer, Lockwood Holiday has an interesting guest – an international American popstar by the name of Mason Keane. Tegan is at first reluctant to even give the time of day to such an obnoxious,... read the full review here: https://www.amybucklesbookshelf.co.uk...

Lauren James

Non Spoiler review! Full review up on my Blog! I got a free copy of this book for an honest review!

Things I liked:
1. The story: I thought it was a really cute fun read. It kind of reminded me of a Hallmark movie (in a good way) just a feel good book.
2. How the characters forgave and dealt with their issues
3. The romance
4. Tegan's parents. They were my favorite characters! They were so funny!

Didn't like:
1. The writing was over flowery, too many adverbs
2. Sometimes the story jumped from scene to scene and I had to just shrug because I didn't know how they got from A to B, and kept reading
3. Some of the lines the characters said were a little too much. I mean, I know it's a love story but sometimes it was too cheesy.

Melody's Key

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