Heartside Bay #3 - More Than a Love Song product reviews

This series is continuing to delight my 12 year old daughter and I must admit I do enjoy the books and the storyline too. We are beginning to learn more and more about the characters and their lives and seeing friendships and relationships develop all over the place. It is quite refreshing to be an adult as you read about teen drama and think back to your own teenage years through reading the all so familiar storylines of heart break and teen insecurities.

My daughter is just lapping this all up it has everything she is interested in fashion, growing up, making friends and hanging out, and of course the subject of boys and everything in between. This particular book focused on the character of Rhi, again I wasn't quite as into it as the first book about Lila, who just seemed a bit more interesting, I can't wait to read more about Lila and I want desperately for the character of Josh Taylor to come back into the storyline he again wasn't even mentioned in this book and I want to see where him and Lila end up.

In this book Rhi is pursuing her dreams of being a singer after being pushed into singing at a wedding she was waitressing. She has a real talent and her friends push her into exploring that. With the help of her friends she gains confidence and puts herself out there more, learning more about herself as a person and as a singer and where she wants to end up. This forces her to stand up for herself and make really difficult decisions which was quite nice to read about. All the characters in the book except for maybe Ollie and Max have so much maturity that you perhaps wouldn't expect from 15 year old's.

The storyline between Max and Rhi continues as she still wants him back despite his cheating on her with Eve and ends up kissing him despite her guilt at being a cheat behind Eve's back. This was quite a juicy storyline but I still found myself wanting to shout into the book don't do it he's a cheat don't take him back. I hope common sense will prevail in future books as Rhi seems like a sweet girl who has been through a lot and Max isn't the right guy for her.

It is also nice to see further friendships get stronger like that of Polly and Rhi's, they confide secrets in each other hang out and there is just a buzz of friendship and fun between the groups. Polly's secret crush on Ollie is revealed and I sense that he obviously likes her too, so will be interesting to see what happens there given he is still dating Lila, this was definitely my favourite part of the storyline.

Interestingly we learn secrets about Polly's mum and I thought that it was nice to be exploring things like this in a teen novel, the way the author carried it through was great seeing acceptance and the girls fighting for justice in wrong doing. I think it was quite realistic and Polly handled the whole situation unbelievably well. It seemed Polly had a lot of strength as a character in this book which was quite nice to see that she wasn't so unsure of herself.

Looking forward to reading the next installment in this series and I know my daughter is chewing at the bit to get hold of the next book.

The third book in the Heartside Bay and I have to admit I was not as mesmerized with this one as the other two. It is based around Rhiannon Wills and her potential singing career. There is also the saga with Max and Eve continuing on. Unfortunately Lila and Ollie really don't get as much of a mention as I would of liked and Polly pops up every once in a while.

Where as the other two books in the series focused on the 'main character' it also spoke regularly of the other characters but with this one it is basically all about Rhi. I don't find her that exciting and although not a boring read it wasn't as biting at the teeth wanting to find out what happens next. It is still good, nice and simple story no complications, chapters are short and the writing is very basic. It has the drama still of love, fighting, enemies, friends all the good teenage girly things, but it was heavily made up of her singing career.

Its not the sort of book that you can read while in extreme pain and definitely does not keep you focused while in hospital. I think the first one 'The new girl' would have but this one I had to throw on the floor after two lines as I just couldn't do it. Where as the other books I read in less than 3 hours this has taken me over two days because was in hospital for one of them.

Unfortunately this series needs to be read continuously or you will miss some main element. You do find out a bit about Polly's mum which was a surprise and Polly does confide in Rhi about her feelings for Ollie, but besides those parts not a lot happens with the outside group. Still a great read and a series I am dying to finish. Another surprise was how strong Polly was in this book, she didn't appear to have any anxiety like in the previous book and didn't seem scared at all.... not sure how I feel about that.