I love Kate Golden's snappy writing. This contemporary romance surprises with fascinating musings on art, music, and love, wrapped up in an escapist romantic fantasy. Lots of fun.

This was so good!! I love a rock star romance and Halloran being a quiet, poetic type instead of some hothead guy was amazing. Very Hozier of him. I also adored Clementine and saw myself in her a lot which brought me deeper into the story. The writing was great and the plot was believable and Kate Golden is definitely an author I will keep an eye out for to read more from her!

If Not For My Baby by Kate Golden

Thank you @berkleyromance for the finished copy, and thank you @prhaudio for the audiobook! I devoured this one! #berkleypartner #berkley #prhaudiopartner #prhaudio

WARNING: Every single moment of this book made me want to listen to Hozier. Only read if you are willing to daydream about hot musicians in perpetuity. Proceed with(out) caution.

I don’t know what @kategoldenauthor put into this book, but I’ll take 10 more, please!

The connection between the characters is almost immediate, with stolen stares and hallway meetings, and I was HOOKED!

Clementine has a nice character arc, and I enjoyed seeing where her journey went. Especially, with her interest in performing and love of theatre. 🤩

Thomas (Holloran) is broody and musical and perfect. He’s not your typical rockstar romance MMC, and I loved it that way. He’s gentle, thoughtful, and perfectly unforgettable.

This book was such a good listen! Ellie Gossage and Eric Nolan did such a beautiful job capturing the tension and emotions of the book. I just love an audiobook with an Irish accent.

This is a great romance read for summer!

Thank you so much to Berkley & NetGalley for this e-arc.


As the two main characters embark on a passionate and addicting romance while on tour, the story revolves around their developing connection. The found family aspect was my favorite. Clementine deserved to feel like she belonged, and she needed it badly. I also thought the story's songs, ties to music, and poetry were amazing. An exceptionally well-written story. Clem, Tom, and their bandmates stole my heart. This was one of those stories that made me appreciate romance all the more because it's messy, emotional, and wonderful.

Meh, this one just wasn’t my taste. I’m a fan of Kate Golden’s work and was excited to try something outside her romantasy series, but this rockstar romance didn’t really land for me. The cover definitely drew me in, and Tom was a total sweetheart (seriously, I’d love a man like him), but the rest of the story just didn’t click.

The romance felt a little too insta-lovey for me. They’re kissing pretty early on, and after that it was like Tom was already all in, which made the rest of the story feel predictable. I struggled with the chemistry between Tom and Clementine, I think they needed more solo time off-tour to really connect. And while I liked parts of Clem’s character, her constant emotional self-sabotage and tendency to push Tom outside his comfort zone made it hard to root for her.

It’s not a bad book by any means, it just wasn’t my style. I got bored halfway through and never fully connected with the couple. That said, the music element was fun, the side characters and found family vibes were a highlight, and I can definitely see why others are loving it. Just not one I’d reread.

Thank you Berkley Pub for the eARC via Netgalley.

If Not for my Baby

Genre: Romance
Rating: 5/5⭐️
Recommended: Yes!

This book!!! I love an angsty romance with a happy ending and this book pleasantly surprised me with all of the hurt/comfort feelings. I loved the personalities of all of the characters and I would love to return to this world again and read more about them.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who loves music and stories that you can’t put down!

Read if you like…
⭐️ Celebrity Romance
⭐️ Music
⭐️ Friends to Lovers
⭐️ He Falls First
⭐️ He Falls Harder
⭐️Angst!

This book made me smile and giddy reading it! It's spicy, unique and a great rockstar romance. It take a bit longer for me to get invested in the story, but I still really enjoyed it!

I thought the yearning and the music centered story was everything. I really enjoyed it. The issue for me was actually the hozier of it all. I feel like as I read it it just felt invasive and weird and I feel like sometimes we can take it too far with inspo. The story by itself stood well and I loved the couple.

Reading If Not for My Baby was a wonderful space into a fantasy I have certainly had but never been able to fully articulate. Equal parts heartfelt and sexy, this was a perfect end of summer read. More contemporary romance from Kate Golden please!!

I am all about this setting for the romance - a backup singer and a singer on a tour with a tour bus!! Yes please! The setting made up for the fact that these two characters got together pretty quickly as far as the timing in the book goes. I really liked both of the characters and thought their romance was sweet. The rockstar part was less edgy than other rockstar romances I have read and I appreciated a different approach to it. As someone who reads a lot of romance, my sweet spot is around 350ish pages and t his clocks in at 448 (12 hours on audio) so there were parts that dragged, specifically the ending. That puts it between a 3-4 star for me so I am rounding up at this time.

*Thank you to Berkley and Netgalley for the e-ARC! All opinions are my own.*

DNF ~15% due to the excessively specfic Hozier references of it all. I knew this was *inspired* by him. I didn't know it was THIS fanfic-y about him. Super skeevy imo :/

Blog link goes live Sept 14th
Youtube Review up in Weekend Reads from Sept 7th
Amazon and Barnes & Noble Reviews submitted

**TL;DR**: Absolutely not, no thank you. Yikes.
**Source**: NetGalley - Thank you to the publisher!!

**Plot**: An ordinary girl gets picked by plot devices to sing backup for a Hozier fan creation.
**Characters**: I couldn’t stand our female MC and Halloran was just Hozier.
**Setting:** Very little setting was here except the bus, which I did like.
**Romance**: No. I hated this, sorry.
****

**Thoughts:**

I am going to try and keep this short. I dislike everything about the idea behind this. It’s based on Real Person Fanfiction which I find invasive and gross. It’s made almost worse by the fact that the real person in particular is so private, it feels like such a big overstep of boundaries. As fans or even just people on the internet we really need to learn where the boundaries of parasocial are. This steps over those boundaries, even the ones that I feel the artist himself as set.

There could be an argument made for ‘Oh you don’t have to see the fanfiction of it! Just enjoy it for what it is now’. This book does not stand on it’s own without the Hozier knowledge in my opinion. If you even know the basics (which is all I know) about the artist you can see it immediately. From his appearance, to his origins, to the music, and his accent. If you remove any pervious knowledge the romance feels flat and instant. Our main female character is a mess. She doesn’t believe in love, and yet she sees the love and beauty in his lyrics. She is dragging her best friend with benefits along, refusing to see his obvious adoration and abusing that relationship. And poor Halloran/Hozier has so little personality he sees that and thinks “Oh that’s not a red flag”. If we saw a male character do that, we’d be screaming red flag.

While I’m sure this author can write good books, her romantasy series is on my TBR, I this was NOT it. This felt deeply gross, invasive and I disliked it so much. Please for the love of god, let’s stop publishing these obvious fanfictions? I don’t mind if I can’t see the source material! Do better and be better guys. Come on now.

Feels like forever since I've gotten my hands on a truly good rockstar romance and this one made me giddy!

This book follows down on her luck Clementine and her relationship with Hozier stand-in Halloran. Clementine is trying to earn enough money to be able to pay for her disabled mom's medical treatment, and when the opportunity to be a back up singer on tour with a famous singer/songwriter comes along, Clem can't turn it down. Which shouldn't be a problem except Halloran is mysterious, sexy, and Clementine has recently fallen in love with his music.

There really wasn't anything that I disliked about this one. I loved the burn of this romance. Not too slow but definitely not too much too quickly. Clementine gets to know Halloran before anything physical or romantic happens. The forced proximity made for tons of great tension. And the night that Clem gets super drunk and has to be taken care of by Halloran was a particularly high point for me.

This is the kind of book I know younger me would have loved, but older me can still appreciate. Just enough of a self insert fanfic vibe to be satisfying, but without a Mary Jane heroine to irritate me.

Would love to read more books like this in the future from this author. She really does a great job in a contemporary setting.

I love musical romances they are always magical and I really enjoyed this one a lot. But while it was fun and enjoyable while it lasted, it didn’t have anything that truly stood out. I just needed a little more from it.

4⭐️

calling all the rockstar romance lovers, this one is for you! halloran and clementine’s love story truly had me swooning. i loved the journey of feeling like i was also going on tour and experiencing all the things clementine did. and the fact that the mmc was kind of based on hozier?! i was instantly sold 😌 the tension, the forced proximity, the insane chemistry… this was just such a perfect read! i really enjoyed all of the side characters too, they each had their own unique moments and really flowed well into the found family dynamic. i easily flew through this book without even realizing, it was quick paced and just a blast to read.

thank you berkley romance for the gifted ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley and to Berkley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

So being completely honest - this book took me over 60% to really get invested. I just didn't care - and really didn't even truly ever connect with the book.

Tom & Clem just had no chemistry; I would have liked to see their romance bloom outside of just being on the tour! It was a bit hard to really believe (for me) with nothing outside!

That being said - I LOVED Tom's character and the musical element to the entire book was by far my absolute favorite!

*Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review and to PRH Audio for a gifted ALC*

I'll be honest... I couldn't get over the fact that this was Hozier fanfiction. For some, that might be a huge selling point. For me, I would've preferred it was less obvious. But who am I to deny the world a hot 6'6" Irishman?

I enjoyed the audio performance, especially the male narrator. The Irish accent was absolutely on point! Super smooth and sultry. However I felt like the plot was a bit underdeveloped and I didn't really *like* the FMC. She kept making strange decisions that didn't really further her goals and was super insecure despite people constantly validating her. But it did make me listen to the Hozier concert playlist trying to find parallels to songs in the book which was a great time.

While this definitely leaned a little too close to Hozier fan fiction at times, I still found myself enjoying it. The writing had a sweet, lyrical quality, and the yearning between the characters was beautifully done. That said, there were moments when their relationship didn’t quite feel believable, and a few scenes veered into the cheesy side of romance tropes. Still, it was entertaining from start to finish, and if you’re a fan of rockstar romances, with all the intensity, poetry, and drama they bring, I’d say this one is worth picking up.

I have read Kate's books in the past so I was excited to read something different from her. This story is about Halloran, a famous singer and our FMC comes on tour to be his backup singer. Since the beginning, the tension in there between them. Seeing them so close on stage and try to avoid each other off stage was !!! The breaking point was oh so sweet

This book made me ball! I absolutely did not believe that I would love this book so much. I really enjoy a rockstar Romance with a normal every day person and this book gave me all the feels. I have come to want from that genre of book. Tom and Clementine were an epic couple. Tom has got to be one of the sweetest male characters. I have read this year. You couldn’t help but swoon for the rockstar. I started to think toward the end that I was not going to get my happily ever after… Boy was I wrong! Love this book infinity stars!⭐️