Love, love, love this book.

So I kept hearing all about this book called Open Road Summer and then my sister read it and was almost ready to push Jase (from My Life Next Door) off her list for this Matt Finch guy and based on that alone, I knew I had to read it. I am officially on the Matt Finch bandwagon and he is sitting on my Swoony Book Boyfriends bookshelf.

This was such a wonderful book. It has lovely (and flawed) characters, a fantastic story, and Emery Lord weaves all of this together with music...one of my favorite things.

Reagan has had a rough time lately and decides that it might be a great idea to get away from things by going on tour with her best friend Dee who happens to be a super popular country music star. It is clear that there are some things going on with Reagan but Lord does a good job of slowly sharing them with the reader. Almost immediately, a story gets to the entertainment “news” world that could hurt Dee’s clean cut image and the solution her record label comes up with is to have another artist on the label open Dee’s shows and hopefully alleviate some of the potential bad press.

You guessed it – Matt Finch is that other artist and immediately Reagan is a bit suspicious – mostly because she is super protective of Dee. He has been out of the limelight for a number of years and she thinks he is only doing this to further his music career. As she starts to learn more about Matt Finch (yeah…I have a hard time just calling him Matt), she comes to realize there is more to him than his career.

Matt Finch has also had a tough time lately. His mother recently passed away and when the call came in asking him to open for Dee’s shows, he leapt at the opportunity to get away and think about something else. As he gets to know more and more about Reagan, he is drawn to her and all I can say is that when he writes music for her….I may have sighed out loud for how perfect it was. He’s not afraid to challenge her and make her open her eyes and I love that about him.



I loved seeing the change in Reagan’s character from the beginning of the novel to the end. She has to grow up and figure out what is really important to her along with what she is willing to walk away from or fight for. I loved the ending and that is all I will say about that.

If you are looking for a wonderful story that ties together friendship, romance, music, and family, definitely check this one out. I’m not usually a big pusher of Contemporary Romance so you HAVE to know it is good if I am pushing this book at anyone who asks me for recommendations…..just saying.