Love Songs and Lullabies

Grace Note Records #3

by Amy Vastine

Their engagement is a sham…

But their baby-to-be isn’t!

Country music stars Sawyer Stratton and Piper Starling are headed for the top of the charts. But then their course shifts unexpectedly…toward parenthood! The only way to keep Piper’s pregnancy from making the wrong headlines is to set the proverbial date. But how can Piper go through with a fake engagement when her feelings for Sawyer are anything but?

Genres: Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Clean Romance

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 19, 2018

About the author

Amy Vastine has been plotting stories in her head for as long as she can remember. An eternal optimist, she studied social work, hoping to teach others how to find their silver lining. Now, she enjoys creating happily-ever-afters for all to read. Amy is an empty-nester living outside of Chicago with her high school sweetheart-turned-husband and their two sweet but mischievous pups. Visit her at amyvastine.com

Reviews

[Aimee]

I've been following and reading this series from the very beginning and I keep coming back because I just love it. In all of the books, one or more of the characters are musicians. It's so fun! Characters from previous books make appearances in this book and I love the feeling of familiarity that comes from that.

In this book Sawyer and Piper are reconnecting after a break up. They shared a love and a relationship at one point but they separated and now that Piper knows she is pregnant, they have no choice but to reconnect. Second chance at first love stories are some of my favorites. Piper and Sawyer still have feelings for each other but both are wary and afraid to put themselves out there to be hurt. With lives in the limelight, they have to be careful and for Piper, that means thinking about all the people that work for her as well. The struggle is real and even though both Piper and Sawyer are figuring out their own issues, I loved the way they showed care and concern for each other.

This was a good story and I read through it so quickly, always rooting for Piper and Sawyer to figure things out and get to the good stuff. 😊 In the end, it's the music that helps bring them together. Music is powerful.

Content: mention of previous intimate relations that result in pregnancy (no details), kissing

- I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher at my request. All opinions expressed are my own.

[Megan]

The story begins with Piper in the hospital getting checked out after a fall on stage and learning from the doctor that she's pregnant...she was shocked! What follows is a fun and entertaining tale that I couldn't put down.

Piper has a tendency to let her father and others in management guide her career too much, almost could call it control, so that she lets what's best for her career determine other areas of her life. This is something she has to break.

Sawyer had a difficult moment in his childhood, which left him emotionally scarred towards love. This is something he has to work on.

I'd recommend Love Songs and Lullabies to fans of clean contemporary romance. I haven't read the previous two books in the series, but I definitely want to give them a read...hopefully soon.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I was asked to give my honest opinion of the book - which I have done.

[Emma]

Love Songs and Lullabies by Amy Vastine
Their engagement is a sham…
But their baby-to-be isn’t!
Country music stars Sawyer Stratton and Piper Starling are headed for the top of the charts. But then their course shifts unexpectedly…toward parenthood! The only way to keep Piper’s pregnancy from making the wrong headlines is to set the proverbial date. But how can Piper go through with a fake engagement when her feelings for Sawyer are anything but?
This is Piper Starling and Sawyer Stratton's story.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I’m pregnant?”
Piper Starling felt like she’d stepped outside her body. Her stomach rolled. The walls of the exam room inside Nashville General Hospital’s ER began to close in. This could not be happening.
“Miss Starling—” The doctor took a seat on the stool beside the exam table.
Sawyer’s voice reached her in the hallway. His playfulness was infectious as he sang and strummed a guitar. It was his lightheartedness that had gotten her in this trouble in the first place.
She steeled herself as she entered the hospitality room. Sawyer Stratton had accepted there wasn’t a future for the two of them. How would he feel when he found out they’d be forever.
“YOU HAVE GOT to be kidding me,” Sawyer said, setting his guitar down. “You are unbelievable!”
I highly recommend reading.
Love Songs and Lullabies by Amy Vastine is a wonderful well written 5 star book.
I am looking forward to reading more books by Amy Vastine.
Grace Note Records
1. The Girl He Used to Love
2. Catch a Fallen Star
3. Love Songs and Lullabies
Chicago Sisters
1. The Better Man
2. The Best Laid Plans
3. The Hardest Fight
Return of the Blackwell Brothers
4. The Rancher's Fake Fiancee

[Lynn Brooks]

Sweet and sassy! With the next book in her Grace Note Records series, Amy Vastine takes us a journey of young love! We've met both Sawyer and Piper as side characters in previous books in the series. She's already a country music super star while he's a talented songwriter but new to the industry as a whole. They have several things working against them as they try to forge through the distractions to find a way to be together. I liked the characters in general, but their story fell a little flat. Not my favorite in the series, but an entertaining read none the less!

Sawyer Stratton thought he was falling in love, but Piper turned the tables on him when she said they were making a mistake and walked out on him. He's still upset that she ended things and wonders if he can do anything to change her mind.

Piper Starling can't believe her luck. She thought Sawyer wanted the same things she did, but then outside influences made her suspect it wasn't the real deal, so she pulled the plug on their love affair and put her concentration back on her tour. Only problem is, she just found out she's pregnant with his baby! To protect her squeaky clean reputation with her fans, they decide to fake an engagement ... but real feelings get involved and pretty soon they're trying to figure out if forever is a possibility!

[Janga]

This is the third book in Vastine’s Grace Notes Records series, after The Girl He Used to Love and Catch a Fallen Star. It is obvious that Piper and Sawyer have a history, and I think their history must be a thread in the first book. Missing that connection, I found myself impatient with all the drama and the family interference in the lives of the lead couple. They are twenty-five, but much of the reaction would have seemed more appropriate had they been a decade younger. I also felt that much of the tension could have been resolved with one honest conversation between the two people most directly involved.

Faith, Sawyer’s sister, was the only character I truly liked, and I actively disliked Piper’s father. Had this not been a book I had committed to review, it might have been a DNF for me. Readers more dedicated to the Heartwarming imprint than I or who have read the earlier books in the series will likely find it more appealing than I did. That belief persuaded me to award the novel three stars and conclude that I was just not part of the audience that Love Songs and Lullabies targets. (I do like the title.)

See full review at The romance Dish:
http://www.theromancedish.com/2018/04...

[Kate Vale]

Another Grace Note Records tale, in which we learn that country stars Sawyer Stratton and Piper Starling have not only collaborated on new songs for her that go to the top of the charts, but they also do so in making a baby. Not what Piper was expecting, but now she is! Daddy dear isn't going to be happy, especially when Sawyer has been asked to open on Piper's planned tour.

As the pregnancy progresses, the singer-lovers make the most of the situation by deciding to have a fake engagement and then a fake wedding. That fakeness soon turns to something else for Piper who is convinced faster than Sawyer that they are meant to be together. That is, until she's convinced that he really isn't that into her and she calls off the wedding on the very day it is supposed to occur.

Blame it on his mother who shows up after more than 20 years being gone. Blame it on Sawyer's fears about that L word, which freaks him out. How this all ends is ultimately satisfying, though I had my doubts these two characters would ever again satisfy their country music fans.

[Julie Eichelberger-Ford]

Love Songs and Lullabies is third in the Grace Not Records series but can be read as a stand alone story. This is a story of outside influences threatening to destroy the budding relationship of two up and coming music stars. Piper is a popular, wholesome star on the country music charts and does everything to protect her image because she supports her family including a brother with severe medical issues. Sawyer is a rising star who was abandoned by his mother at a young age, he was raised by a loving father and sister. Now he protects his heart above all else. He thought he and Piper had a special connection but her father put an end to their budding relationship; that is until Piper discovers that she is pregnant. A fake engagement, a controlling father, the return of a long lost mother, and several other issues again threaten to destroy the love that Piper and Sawyer are discovering again. This is a sweet romance that will have your heart singing as Piper and Sawyer overcome all the obstacles placed in their way. Great story.

[Toth Jo-Ann]

I got this book last week in my shipment of books and as I read the story I fell in love with it. In this story we get to meet Piper Starling and Sawyer Stratton. They had spent the summer together writing music and falling for each other but Piper's manager who is her father puts a stop to it. This story is so neat. It gives you a glimpse into the world of a country singer. The pressure they are under from their fans and the paparazzi. It is also about falling in love. In this story it shows you what can happen when you put the cart before the horse. Piper and Sawyer have decisions to make. It takes them on more than 1 road before they find the road that works for them. Its an awesome story that will remind many parents of the road we traveled as we became parents. It was a great story for it gives you a glimpse of Nashville and of love.

[J.R.]

I cannot stand how much in love I am with the entire Grace Notes family. Any vastine has given me the best giggles and tears with all of these books - sawyer and piper’s story was an absolute roller coaster and although it was painful for me to watch sawyer struggle with his feelings it was so satisfying to watch him grow as a man and embrace love from every angle in his life - my heart is full right now. Thank you for another fantastic story and two more favorite characters.

[Anita]

Second chance at first love stories are one of my favorites. (Oh who am I kidding, well written love stories are "all favorites". Sawyer and Piper are two country singers who are collaborating on a song, and a relationship which is on again off again. There are problems and resolutions and happiness in the end. Amy Vastine writes fun dialogue and life as it is. Good read.

[Frankie]

Loved it!

[Harlequin Books]

Miniseries: Grace Note Records

[Megan]

Piper leaned against him. "I'll be happy when this is all over. Is that bad?"

He smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist. "There'd be no such thing as elopement if everyone loved weddings."

This is the fifth full-length romance I've read by Amy Vastine, and the third that I thought was doing something unusually complicated and emotionally deep. (That's a compliment, btw. That's an excellent ratio.) I like fake dating/engagement stories, and I thought I knew what I was getting with this, but I did not. Vastine does not go easy on her characters, and her writing strengths I've noticed previously (complicated family dynamics, large group scenes, fun dialogue, and a protagonist with flaws that hurt both themselves and others) were put to good work in this book, and even if the book was far from perfect (bland heroine, gross gender stuff that goes unquestioned), it's still more dynamic than the vast majority of romance novels.

It's that last strength that really made this book interesting, and it's where Vastine does her best work: her characters hurt each other with their flaws. They're afraid of who they really are or who they might be, and they can't face that, and in doing so, they hurt the person who believes the best in them. That's a journey a lot of romance novels put their characters through, and Vastine's done this before in other books I've read, but this one was jaw-droppingly good and actually painful at times, just how immature (but desperately hopeful, desperately in denial) the two characters were.

See, the Dark Moment in the romance arc is usually just an obligatory One-Last-Doubt plot point, emphasis on obligatory and often relying on miscommunication or unbelievable character motivations. But the scenes leading up to and featuring this plot point in Love Songs and Lullabies were utterly gripping: the protagonists were breaking up as the pressure was ramping up on them not to, and it was the right thing to do, and I wasn't sure if Sawyer was going to be the person he needed to be in order to make their relationship work. Certainly he hadn't showed that maturity or that ability to trust before. And Piper might be brave enough to walk away, finally:

"So where does that leave us?" he asked.

She felt sick. They had come so far, but were still falling so short. Could they still walk down the aisle? She put her hands on her stomach. All she wanted was to give this baby a happy family.

"That leaves me in love with you and you falling in love with me. And both of us loving this baby."

There were people who settled for much less than that, she told herself. There were those who married for money instead of love. The ones who married out of fear of being lonely. Piper was fortunate enough to be marrying for love.

She could walk down that aisle today and marry the man she loved. Only she'd be asking him to marry someone he cared about who was carrying a baby that he most definitely loved.

Was that enough?

I wish the book was stronger on the actual connection that Piper and Sawyer actually had. I'm not sure how much of their initial falling-for-each-other/hook-up/whatever happened on page in the second book in the series (which I didn't read), but with so much time devoted to the fake relationship and the stress of it, I felt like there was very little in this book that showed--not told--that Piper and Sawyer had chemistry, had fun together, etc. That the reunion involved a cliche--I thought your life was in danger, and in doing so, I realized I love you!--was disappointing, too.

Also, the heroine is blandly and inoffensively likeable in a very bog standard romance way--Piper's personality traits are that she is kind, sweet, and professional, and that she sacrifices for her family and likes peanut butter cookies--and even though she had that great moment of courage that had me cheering for her, there's nothing very complex about her. (I'm not conservative enough to find complexity in the fact she had sex before marriage, but maybe that's the viewpoint of the assumed default Heartwarming reader idk. I was irritated enough by the gross gender stuff--not Piper's image management and the general social norms, which I could roll with, but unquestioned other discussion of daughters/girls/etc.--baked into this book in general, though. Also, I still wish that this small Tennessee town didn't have a place called the Sundown Bar & Grill, because then I start remembering how white these small towns in these very white romance novels are and how they're probably sundown towns. It's distracting, and I'm possibly not the only reader who flinches at the term used in these white small town contexts.)

So this is a book that didn't live up to its potential in some ways, but it was still doing something really interesting and unusual in how it used the standard romance narrative, inflicted it upon two characters who were willing to play along until they had to admit it wouldn't work for them. I liked that a lot.