Reverie by Lauren E Rico.
Julia James has spent most of her life hiding in plain sight. For her, the cello was a way to get past a hellish childhood. Even now that she is one of the top cellists in the country, and a contender in the most prestigious, high-stakes music competition in the world, she hopes no one will notice her.
But then someone does.
A chance (or is it?) encounter brings her to the attention of the distractingly sexy, charismatic French horn player, Jeremy Corrigan. As he helps her to embrace her talent, her sexuality and her past, Julia thinks she might finally be headed toward her ‘happily-ever-after.'
Unfortunately, happily isn’t so much ‘ever-after’ for Julia.
a very good read with good characters. I liked Julia. 4*. Netgalley and weaponry co-op.

Reverie is a great start in what will ultimately be a trilogy. Julia is a successful, quiet, young woman who plays the cello in The McInnes Conservatory of Music. Her nickname is Mouse, for mostly unflattering reasons, but she's not as timid as the nickname suggests. She had a rough childhood and was in the foster care system for a lot of it. Her best friend, Matthew, was in foster care with her, and is her roommate now. He too is a classical musician, a viola player. Jeremy is a horn player at McInnes, also, and he will become the man to seduce her and bring her out of her mousy shell. He's clearly dominant and the relationship progresses really quickly. It's steamy, so if that's your thing, you'll love Reverie.

But, twists and turns and crazy things start happening and Julia is left reeling. If you like your romance with lots of unpredictability and shades of darkness, I highly recommend you read Reverie. Beware, though, that this is only part 1 of a trilogy.

Great series! Kept my attention and sad to see the series end

WOW this book will make you lose sleep because you wont put it down. There are so many twists you wont see them coming!

Good morning, sweeties! Ugh, I don’t know if in the USA it’s morning, but here in Italy, precisely in Veneto, are the 13.45 and the sun is shining bright through the window in my room. Today, I’ll review for you one book that has attracted me from the start, from the moment I saw this book I know that I’ll review. I do always like this, when I feel drawn by a book (by its cover and by its synopsis). Well, I wish you all a good reading, you will find my review scrolling down the post!
PREMISE
I felt drawn to this book from the moment I saw it, I had just finished reading “Non mentirmi” by Sagara Lux, a novel about a violinist, so I felt super excited when I understood that this book would have had as background the classical music. I adore classical music, sometimes I found myself listening to Mozart “Requiem for a Dream” or one of Bach’s sonata. I hope that you will enjoy my review!
REVIEW
This book has been a really rollercoaster, as I said on Goodreads, I had moments in which I was hoping that Jeremy Corrigan would change and become a better person with Julia’s love, and moments in which I saw a Julia blindfolded by love that couldn’t recognize that Jeremy was only manipulating her. Yeah, most of the times, I really would have taken her by her shoulders and shaken her, in order to wake her up from the charming spell that Jeremy put on her. But let’s start from the beginning. Julia James it’s a shy coy girl with a dark past that still haunts her, even after ten years. Julia has been abused by her father, who used to spill hot coffee on her and beaten her; while her mother decided to go away from their house leaving her with her father, although she knew what kind of man he was. After a long series of misadventures, she has been put into a foster center, where she knew Matthew Ayers. Matthew has lost his parents in a boating accident, but has worked hard since, and has become a member of the Quartet of Strings, playing the viola. Yes, he plays the viola while Julia is a hard working cello player. Matthew never hide the fact the he feels more than simple affection to her, he’s in love with her, and while she refuses him for years he is still on her side, supporting her career as a cellist and working. Everything changes when Julia casually (but it isn’t so casually as it may seem) meets Jeremy Corrigan, the guy every girl fall for Jeremy is indeed a sexy, charming boy with a big ego, at first I even liked him as a character. Who wouldn’t fall in love with him? I mean, he’s the hot guy every girl fall in love with. But everything is not what is seems, and Julia will soon experience the dark side of Jeremy. A dark side that he’s been hiding for months. Jeremy is a very mean character, it’s the kind of psychotic and sociopathic character that doesn’t feel empathy for anybody. His only aim is to become the greatest French horn player in New York, to win the gold medal in the Kreisler’s competition and to live a luxury life. The first thing we know about Jeremy is that he has a big brother, Brett, that has been conditioned by his manipulations ever since they were children. From this moment on, they made a deal, in which Jeremy would do what he wants and Brett wouldn’t say a word about it, they will live complete different lives, even though they live together. What shocked me the most is knowing that Brett assisted to a woman being sexually assaulted and raped, and he didn’t do anything.
This story is about love, abuse, abusive relationships and a past that still haunts you. It shows that people aren’t always what they seem, and that you don’t have to trust everyone suddenly. You have to trust your gut, and if it tells that something’s wrong with that person, it’s because there is something wrong. Another relevant element is indeed the crescendo of the tension between Jeremy, Matthew and Julia; you can feel their emotions crawling onto your skin. For me, the ending of this first book of the trilogy means one thing: true love conquers all and Matthew and Julia are the clear example of that. No matter how many hard times and rainy days they’ve been through, their love will win everything.
I found the book a little too repetitive, because I constantly found the same adjectives and verbs throughout all the novel. I think that another round of revising would have rendered this book perfect, I mean, it’s almost perfect so for me it’s four stars to five.
The book contains three different sections, in which we can find the book narrated by the POV of Julia, Jeremy, Julia and the epilogue with a special apparition of Brett. I found this structure interesting, not only because we get to know how the characters really are, but also how and what they think. Needless to say that I hated Jeremy’s Manifesto, because from that little chapter on, it will become crystal clear what his intentions towards Julia, Cal and Matthew really are.
I farewell you all with this quote taken from this amazing book that I advice to everyone who wants to read a story full of love, suffering and grief but also thrilling and exciting.
“It’s so much easier to just slip under the covers and allow the darkness to overtake me. Unfortunately, sleep is not guarantee of escape. Sometimes, the demons follow me there, too.”
(Julia James)

xoxo,
Giada

NOTE: This review can be read both in Italian and English.

This book is phenomenal! It has a completely unexpected turn and sucks you in. This is one of the best trilogies that I have read in a long time. I read all three books in a weekend. This book is about music, love, destruction and putting the pieces together again. READ THIS BOOK....NOW....

Wow. This is a very good book. Julia and Matthew grow up in foster care and are platonic best friends/roommates. They both are musicians. Enter Jeremy who gets involved with Julia. Jeremy is a sociopath but that doesn't come out until much later in the book. He tries to destroy Julia and her chances for winning a very big musical award. Thankfully Matthew comes back into the picture and saves the progress of the destruction.

Reverie
Reverie, Book 1, Lauren E. Rico

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre: Romance, Mystery and thrillers.

I loved the sound of this, and most important, parts one and two are out now and three very soon. I hate, absolutely hate, waiting for rest of a story, and it seems that trilogies dominate the romance genre now. I love the way they give a solid extended story, but hate those that keep readers waiting months, years even for subsequent parts. By then I’ve lost the momentum, lost the magic of the story and have to recap just to remember what had happened.

So, its Julia, Jeremy and Matthew that dominate this story. Julia and Matthew share a flat, having been brought up in the same children’s home since they were around ten years old. Luckily Matthew has money inherited from his parents so they don’t have worries on that front.
Its just as well as both are devoted to their music, Matthew having already graduated from the prestigious conservatory, and Julia in her last year. they spend all their free time rehearsing, practice, practice, practice, so they wouldn’t have time for jobs.
I’m assuming Julia gets some form of student loan or something, she pays rent to Matthew for her room, though nowhere near what such a premium apartments would cost. There’s never any mention of where the money comes from.
Odd how two kids from a children's’ home just happen to both get in to the conservatory, how she’s able to pay for all the private tuition too.

Likewise Jeremy, he shares with his older brother Brett, again both talented musicians, but there’s never any mention of where they get their money? Given what comes later Jeremy must have some generous source somewhere to allow him to pursue his research, allow him to follow his inclinations.
There’s a brief mention of their childhood, but never anything current as regards other family members, there just seems to be the two of them, no other relatives.

What I liked about this story was the passion for music that shows through. I know very little about classical music and orchestras, other than that I ejoy much of it but that didn’t matter, the story from that part flowed easily and I was kept into the way the music was such a way of life for the orchestra members.

What didn’t work so well – I felt at times I was being spoon fed the mystery, pointed to where I should look next. The bad guy almost has a huge X over his head from the first meeting, likewise the good guy was marked with a large heart round him...well, that’s how it felt for me.
I needed a bit more mystery, needed to see how the story built up, to have things kept in the dark so I could work it out myself.
It seemed right from the start it was clear that things were not going to go smoothly, for me I need to be persuaded into thinking they will, until they go wrong, but it was so clear here what was going to happen. 
It meant that some of the more clever manipulations in the story were just too obvious,  whereas written differently they would have kept me guessing til later in the novel. That takes the Mystery out of a mystery read.  

I felt Julia went from being best friends with Matthew, taking his advice and sharing support with him, to making him her enemy in a very short span given the years they’d been everything to each other.
I was astonished at how easily Julia was duped, how quickly she changed to Matthew when she began a relationship with Jeremy.
The things that made up the dark side cost serious money, there seemed to be unlimited contacts and influence, but I needed to know how and where the funding came from.
I’m not entirely sure of the motivation for what went on either, apart from the obvious. Maybe there wasn’t more than that?
 I need that kind of stuff to be clearer, while the build up and bring down to be more subtle.
Ah well, I can see others are happy, love it as is so its one of those “its me not the book” moments. I’m uncertain whether I want to read more – book 2 is on KU, so maybe if I’ve time I might take a look. Maybe the story will work more my way in that part.  
 
Stars: Three.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

This was one unputdownable read. Apart from the romance and the twists, I loved the backdrop of classical music. I've always been a sucker for books and anime with classical music and this one also turned out to be interesting. I loved how the music performances resonated with the current mood of the story or the emotion of the character playing it.

The turn of events was quite predictable. However, the writing kept me hooked. Even though I knew what was coming up next, I could not stop reading. The biggest bummer for me was the smut. There were no hints of it in the decription. Either the genre should have been marked as Erotica or the description should have mentioned that there would be mature content. I picked this one assuming it would be an innocent book on romance. But no, there was so much smut.

I would recommend this book for people interested in classical music, romance and erotica.