I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this one, but I was so glad I gave it a chance! I loved the characters and the plot line was gripping. Definitely a keeper for me!

I just loved getting to enter this world. It was just so easy to get lost in and I just had so much fun with these characters. I look forward to reading more wonderful stories in this series.

DNF at 12% and then 40%

Book is already published so I apologize for the late and now unnecessary review.

Wasn’t my cup of tea, the writing was a little too introspective and I was not a fan of the romance.

Regardless, thank you to the publisher and author for the advanced copy.

I tried really hard to get into this book and it's completely possible it was just my mindset at the time. I can see myself enjoying Set to Music at a later date but right now, it just wasn't for me.

This was an okay romance. I found some of the plot pretty unrealistic being in the medical field myself. The person’s condition didn’t seem to warrant a full time doctor being around. The romance itself was pretty good, but lacked a little spark for me.

It was a good story and exciting. It just wasn't my style. The writing is good though and. is worth a read.

Could a book be any more perfect?

As a Persian girl myself, I never come across a romance novel with my culture in it, let alone the main character being Persian! So you can see how excited I was to discover that Darya Zameeni is the main character of this fantastic book and that the love interest is Mexican. It made my heart go pitter patter with love for the characters before I even began reading.

This book will forever be special to me for so many differnet reasons. I love seeing my culture being represented in a romance novel. I love seeing an Iranian woman fall in love with a Mexican man. I love the portrayal of the importance of family and the respect that comes with it. Being in the culture brings you insight that other readers may not have and I just connected more with it because of that and I'm so glad I got to have that experience.

I'm in love with this book. I'm in love with Darya and Anthony. My heart is full.

WOW! What a book. One of the best I've read so far in 2021.

Anthony is in a band with his brothers. One night, Carlos, his brother and member of the band, collapses and is rushed to the ER. This is where Anthony meets Darya for the first time. Darya is a devoted Persian daughter who chose to focus more on her career than her personal life. That includes dating. When Darya's mother was diagnosed with Cancer, it devastated her beyond belief. She's given the opportunity to travel with Anthony and his band of brothers to take care of Carlos while they're on the road ... at 3 times her salary at the hospital.. She takes the job just so that she can pay for her mom's medical expenses and to give her the best care.

Seeing these two vulnerable characters really open up to each other was incredible. It was a breath of fresh air from what we usually see in "romance" novels. The support and care they have for each other is enough to fall in love with them. I cried several times throughout this book because a few things felt very close to home. It's a beautiful story about finding the person that's right for you during a time that feels so wrong.

I also loved how we got to learn more about Iranian and Mexican cultures, which is rare in most books. There's a lot to unwrap in this book and I couldn't recommend it enough!

This book was a good read. I loved how the book gives a insight to the Iranian culture. It was very entertaining, but at time was hard to read. Overall it is a good pool book.

3 stars — *Maybe* 3.5, but not sure if I just wanted to like it more, you know? I was pretty excited about this one, b/c a) I LOVE celebrity romances; and b) ownvoices diversity!! But if I’m being honest, I struggled to get into this one…and keep reading. If it hadn’t been a NetGalley, I might have DNF’d. Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad book, just not a fit for me.

The writing felt…choppy at times to me. I don’t know how to describe it, because I’m not a writer. But it felt a little bit like a debut book, if that makes sense.

And while I LOVED all the added cultural aspects, and getting a glimpse into 2 different cultures — especially Iranian since you don’t see that nearly enough — I will admit that at times it felt a bit too much. Not the culture stuff, but that she kept reiterating everything was Iranian. I kind of figured out some of that just because Darya was Iranian, I didn’t need to keep being told. Though I did need it on some things, so there’s a balance I guess. Hopefully it’s a balance the author will develop as she continues writing.

Darya was okay for me as a heroine. I tried to understand her Iranian mother guilt, and thus the decisions she made and the times she inevitably hurt Anthony, but it’s hard. In the end it made me dislike her mother most of the time, and I couldn’t help but hope Darya wouldn’t perpetuate those cultural aspects. But yeah, her wishy washy back and forth was just too much for me. I did appreciate how important family was to her, and I LOVED her relationship with her sister (even if I wish she would give Niloo more credit/responsibility).

Anthony was an absolute cinnamon roll. I loved how sweet and caring he was, and how completely unlike his rock star persona. But even he frustrated me at times. I thought some of his reactions to Darya were so abrupt and over the top, it made him seem a bit juvenile? I don’t know. I was glad he had his brothers (I include Mateo and Hugo) around to kick him in the butt at the end there.

Their romance was a bit riddled with so much other stuff, that I was probably only half invested. I think I was enjoying the friendship more than the romance…not to mention the friendships with all the other characters.

There was some unresolved stuff in the secondary character background plot, but I’m assuming that’s a set up for a future book? I hope so, otherwise I am not cool with how it was left.

On a final note, the blurb does NOT give you the right indication about how INVOLVED and INTEGRAL the mother’s illness is going to be. Like diagnosis through treatment through death. I don’t want to spoil it, but I also want readers to understand what they’re getting into. As someone whose mother has struggled with cancer, I had a hard time with how much this took up in the book. Hit too close to home I guess…

So yeah. Just wasn’t the right book at the right time for me.

Complementary copy given for honest review and opinion. Copy provided by NetGalley. I cried big, huge tears with this book. The heartfelt emotions that Negeen Papehn brought in to this book were gut wrenching. The romance was beautiful. The story was beautiful. The writing was really good. A recommended read.

This book is a-may-zing! I loved every bit of it. The characters, the mutual love, the family aspects. Especially the family aspect plays a big role in this book. Anthony and his broter (+ the rest of the band) are so great together. They remind me of my own family and the love we have for each other.

This book made me so emotional. I cried my eyes out, and laughed several times. It made me feel so many things and I couldn't stop reading. .

I loved the backstory of Anthony and Darya. Their stories are well-developed and it formed them who they are now. Their determination was something I admired.

[The link to my blogpost will come later]

4 stars

A multicultural love story done great... YES!!
This was AMAZING!
Our main characters: Dr. Darya Zameeni, an Iranian woman and Anthony Castillo, sexy Latin bad boy and lead singer of Ternura.
It took me one chapter to fall in love with this book. That's it. This was a heartfelt and sometimes heartbreaking story about family and friends and love.
The love story was amazing. It is slow burn but I didn't feel like it was. The cute moments made me swooned and that last few chapters were absolutely beautiful 😍
Fair warning, the story leans heavily around physical illness and grief so I you're not in a good state of mind or don't like reading about these subject, you might not want to pick this one right now. Still I think this was written in a good and respectful way.

TW: Death, Grieve, mental illness, depression , death of a love one, Cancer.

Thank you to the publisher and @netgalley for a copy of the book. This is a new to me author and will need to check out her backlist. This is a rock star romance with an ER doctor that meets due to Anthony’s brother’s accident during a concert. Anthony is so swoon worthy! He loves his family, is attentive and a rock star! As much as this is a romance, there is a lot of sadness in the book with cancer. I liked how this book dealt with my so much about family duty and the conflict from
that.

Thank you NetGalley, Entangled Publishing and Negeen Papehn for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
For fans of ‘You Had me at Hola’, Set to Music is the perfect book to sooth your craving for a sweet romance while still giving you depth and diversity. A hot Latino rockstar with a sick brother and a wavering love for the business plus a brilliant Iranian surgeon with a mother fighting cancer equals all the feels! I finished this in one sitting, unable to put down Anthony and Darya’s love story!
Between working extra hours in the ER to dwindle the mountain of student debt she owes and taking care of her younger sister and mother, Dr. Darya Zameeni doesn’t have time for charming rockstars. Anthony Castillo is a grammy award winning artist with the paparazzi and fans to go with it, but all he craves is to be normal. Sticking in the business to support his sick younger brother, Anthony lives a lonely life that doesn’t feel like his own. When his brother collapses on stage and is rushed to the ER, the last thing Anthony expects is Dr. Darya Zarmeeni. Impossible to ignore the attraction and desperate for help with his brother, Anthony asks Darya to come with them on tour as Carlos’ doctor. When Darya’s mother gets sick and she needs money for treatment, she accepts the job. What follows is a romance you write love songs about.

A sweet fairy tale of an ER doctor and a rock star finding love. Darya is working the late shift when a young man is brought in with heart trouble. She doesn’t recognize him, but she’s the only one in the world who doesn’t. He and his brother front the most famous band in the world, and when Anthony, the protective older brother, shows up, he and Darya can’t take their eyes off each other.

This is the first romance I’ve read with an Iranian American lead. Iranian Darya and Latino Anthony have more in common than they initially think. Both have close relationships with their mothers and younger siblings. There’s a heart wrenching subplot involving cancer, for anyone who might be triggered. Overall, an emotional and satisfying story. There were enough loose ends that I hope this is the beginning of a series.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC to review. All opinions are my own.

Six months into her position as an ER doctor at a busy Los Angeles, California hospital, Darya Zameeni has a professional close encounter of instant personal intrigue with Anthony Castillo, lead singer for international rock band sensation Ternura. When his younger brother's health requires daily monitoring by a trusted medical expert, Anthony makes a generous offer to entice Darya into going on tour with them. She resists temptation until her family's sudden increase in financial need changes her mind. On the surface Darya and Anthony seem like incompatible opposites: nerdy physician and bad-boy rocker, introvert and extrovert, Iranian Muslim and Mexican Christian. Spending time together on the road allows them to see beneath each other's labels to their similarities as responsible older siblings, dutiful offspring, and trustworthy friends who are proud of their cultural heritages and touchstones. They both have relatable daddy issues and deep empathy for others. As they get to know each other readers are treated to the evolution of a friendship that becomes a seductive courtship, moving from affection to warmth to flaming sexual heat.

Set to Music incorporates specific details of the individual Iranian and Mexican cultures to celebrate universal themes of familial love, duty, and expectations, and character traits connected to sibling birth order. Threads on fame, social media, and privacy tally the unexpected costs of achieving success in the entertainment industry. All the drama of a juicy star-crossed lovers romance plus multifaceted characters and nuanced layers of family drama make Darya and Anthony’s love story an emotional journey full of laughter and tears, challenges and triumphs.

Actual rating 3.5

TW cancer & familial death

While I absolutely loved our main characters Darya, an Iranian ER doctor, and Anthony, a Latino rock star, I felt that the structure of the story let me down.

Darya joins Anthony's band on tour as a band member's doctor, but we only really see her when she and Anthony take time out to talk about their life. I didn't think that these interactions felt as genuine as they could because we never get to see them interact outside of them. I wish we could have had more of the in-between/day-to-day life.
Because of this structure, the romantic relationship seems to move too fast and did not feel as deep as we were meant to believe.

I really loved the writing style. It was so easy to fall into. I just wish we had more time with the relationship build-up, and with the other characters. That would have made everything more real for me.

I definitely want to read more of Negeen Papehn's books in the future.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing the E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

HJ Top Pick!

Set to Music by Negeen Papehn: Darya is trying to be the best doctor that she can be while still being the perfect Iranian daughter, taking care of her single mother and supporting her younger sister. The last thing she needed was to be thrown on tour with Grammy winning rock star Anthony Castillo. But when Anthony rushes his little brother Carlos into her E.R after passing out during a concert, Darya finds herself stuck between wanting to keep her distance from the magnetic musician and finally taking the help that she so desperately needs.

There is little more important in life than the safety and wellbeing of his younger brother so when Carlos is rushed to hospital Anthony knows that he will do whatever it takes to ensure that his brother stays healthy and of that means bring the sexy young doctor on tour with them then that is exactly what he will do, never mind the fact that he can't keep his eyes of her. This will definitely be one interesting tour that is for sure.

A medical romance mixed with a musical one, this was just perfect! I absolutely loved watching Darya and Anthony opening up to each other and slowly bring down their walls, only to fall hopeless in love with each other. This is definitely one of those book that will have you tearing up along the way, so keep those tissues handy!

I was absolutely thrilled that both lead characters came from such rich cultural backgrounds and to have them represented so vividly. It was amazing to have the lead female character come from a Persian background and for the culture to be so beautifully represented in the novel. As well as that Anthony and Carlos portrayed their Mexican heritage with so much life and vigor. I absolutely loved that this novel was so inclusive in both cultures as well as the LGBTQ community.

I loved the connection that these two characters created and that they were both so heavily rooted in their family. Watching them face the challenges set in front of them and the way in which they faced them was very well written and very relatable. I absolutely loved Carlos and Mike, though I do wish we got to see a bit more of how their relationship played out.

Overall Set To Music was definitely a must read for many different reasons but the biggest being that it played out into a beautiful love story that felt realistic and relatable. But keep those tissues handy!

I really enjoyed this book! The characters were relatable, real life, and not over the top. I felt their emotions on both the highs and the devastating lows. I couldn't put the book down. I just wanted to know what would happen to the lovely characters next. The romance was believable but still swept you off your feet! Fantastic book, highly recommended!