Still Life with Strings by L.H. Cosway

Still Life with Strings by L.H. Cosway
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.75 (Play Your Heart Out) Stars

Still Life with Strings will make you want to put on some classical music on and life your life happy.

Still Life with Strings (SLWS) was a very light, no angst, finding-love-through-past pains kind of read. I simply love these kinds of books. I love books where it’s only about the main characters and their internal struggles.

Summary

Jade doesn’t have the easiest life. She’s an orphan and has to take care of her younger teenage sister and brother. She works at a musical theater as her main source of income, but does a lot of side jobs, such as standing as a street performer.

Shane is the new violist at the musical theater Jade works at. He’s classically trained, rich and very refined. He’s overcoming some personal issues and is intrigue by Jade’s hardship life.

Overall Review

The summary is a bit misleading, but it’s not a bad thing. In the sense that yes Shane wants to live life, but the book isn’t really about him living life through Jade. I think SLWS is more about two people, two lonely people, coming together to overcome past struggles.

Jade

I love Jade. She’s a very strong Heroine and her attitude is never overly confident or overly annoying. She is a well-rounded character and you admire her daily struggles. I wouldn’t say she’s a damsel in distress kind of Heroine, yes she has a lot of hardships, but she kind of takes everything in stride and lives her life.

Jade’s siblings aren’t the perfect children. Her sister is a little boy crazy and her brother hangs out with the wrong crowd. On top of that, working at the theater doesn’t pay much, but she takes it one day at time.

Shane

Shane is a mystery. You wonder why he left his previous career to join the orchestra. When Shane and Jade meet, it’s insta-lust, but eventually, Jade wants only friendship. Her reasoning is that she’s a sober alcoholic and relationships push her to drink. Shane agrees to the friendship, but it’s hard for him to not cross the lines as he spends more time with Jade and Jade’s world.

Impressions

Since Jade was an alcoholic, I thought she would deal with substance abuse a lot in this book, but she doesn’t. STWS was more about staying sober and what made Jade to switch from being a drunk to a sober person.

I really like the banter and chemistry between Jade and Shane. It felt like an easy relationship with a lot of sexual tension. They truly were friends and liked each other.

I didn’t give SLWS a full five stars because towards the end there was some cheesy factors I wished weren’t written in and the climatic ending was very typical. I kind of wanted a little surprise. Overall though I really enjoyed the read and loved the classical musical theme. It was a little different, but very delightful to read.

AMAZON