Wild Eyes by Elsie Silver
SYNOPSIS
As a chart-topping country singer with a recent streak of bad press, it’s hard for Skylar Stone to find any peace. But she finds it in Rose Hill. With a little boy and a little girl who steal her heart just as thoroughly as their dad.
Weston Belmont.
The man is a shameless flirt. He oozes confidence and masculinity in a way that’s downright distracting. And in bed? He’s addictive. Everything with him is wild and impulsive, and Skylar is desperate to regain some control. But no one has supported her like West does. And no one has ever made her feel as loved as he does either.
So, while Skylar’s brain says settling down with a small-town horse trainer is impossible… her heart says she’s right where she belongs. Still, her life as a celebrity haunts her. It has the power to pull her and West apart. She can see in his eyes that he wants her to stay. And she wants that too.
But Skylar knows better than anyone that you don’t always get what you want.
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Wild Eyes is a cute and comforting Elsie Silver read but doesn’t quite live up to the expectations set in her previous works. Clocking in at around 450 pages, this is a romance that, while fun, had no business being that long. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy this book and I devoured it quickly but I don’t feel we delved deep enough into characterization and the full romance for the amount of pages included in this story. West and Skylar had a great foundation to build on but the insta-love and the skimming over of initial relation-ship building disappointed me in this book. I did like the plot direction. We got a great set up for Skylar’s reasons of running away and that constant build up to shit hitting the fan when her running catches up with her. This book also delved deeply into topics of womanhood that are, unfortunately, all too common these days, especially for famous women. I think the darker and more triggering topics of this book were handled with great care and I’m impressed at Silver for moving deeper into those more women’s-fiction-coded topics and stepping out of her comfort zone. Overall I enjoyed the book, but I wish we got a lot more out of it given the length.
We start our story with Skylar, a country star from the U.S. doing what most of us Canadians have seen a tourist doing a time or two… trying to have a photo op with A BEAR (yes, this DOES happen in real life, too often). West Belmont swoops in to rescue our reluctant damsel and things between them get off to a steamy, if rocky, start. Skylar is running from her overbearing and abusive dad/manager and looking to record and own her own album by working with Ford Grant at his Rose Hill Records recording studio. West is living life as usual, custody of his two adorable and rowdy children every second week, taking care of his horses, and running from his loneliness. When they meet there is an instant attraction. His kids are immediately smitten with her and things progress between them pretty quickly. But trouble rears its head when the press get wind of Skylar’s current “quiet” life and her and West have to decide if their budding relationship is worth risking his family and his peace.
I loved the plot of this. Something that has come to light quite often in the past few years is how hard it is for female celebrities to have any kind of life when their weight, pregnancy status (or non-status), relationships, and minuscule facial expressions are constantly under a microscope and judged by the populous. We delve into some of the struggles women, not just famous women, face when it comes to invasion of privacy and victim blaming. The entire plot very much gave “Taylor Swift fighting to own her masters” and I loved that little nod to how momentous that is for female artists. We also get a great glimpse into small-town life and the little dramas that come along with that. The build up to Skylar’s life imploding was great, I felt on edge even during the little moments, knowing that something was lurking around the corner to ruin the comfort found at West’s farmhouse. It was well executed.
My biggest issue with this book was the characterization. I loved the characters, but after 450 pages, I still feel as if I barely know them. And this is rare when it comes to an Elsie Silver book. Skylar may just be the MOST interesting female character she’s ever written and I feel like we just scratched the surface of her. We got a bit of traumatic background and lots of self-depreciation but for such a strong and depthless character, we didn’t get to dig much into who she is as a person outside of the influences around her. West, in comparison, was probably the least interesting male lead Silver has brought to page. He didn’t have much character growth, staying relatively the same throughout the book. And constantly mentioned as easy-going, go with the flow, steady, stable, and wild. Rinse. Repeat. I feel like some of his characterization was also lost in the skimming. Once the romance begins, we skim over a lot of the “everyday life” stuff that I really LIKE reading in Silvers’ other books. I feel like that’s where his stability and character would have truly shined and we sort of skipped over it. I did, however, LOVE the relationship between Skylar and Ollie. I think that was the star of the show. Connecting two people who struggle with what to say and bonding over music and lyrics? Fabulous. Give me 10 more.
I did have a good time reading this book and revisiting Rose Hill. I devoured the book pretty quickly which impressed even me given its length. It just didn’t get into the meat of the characters like what I’ve come to expect from Silvers writing. I gave this 3.5 stars for enjoyment but not quite 4 due to lack of character exploration.