Review + Excerpt: Fast Lane - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

“Once he met her, it was and always would be Lyla.”

They were the gentlemen bad boys of rock. Forming in a garage in a small town in Indiana. Taking their licks on the road. Going balls to the wall until they made their big break.

And then Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters redefined rock and roll.

Guided by their tortured lead singer and songwriter, the Roadmasters changed the face of music in the 80s and 90s. And on their journey to becoming one of the most enduring bands in history—dogged by rumors and myth and fueled by drugs and booze—the Roadmasters had one touchstone.

Lyla.

Preacher’s muse, the love of his life, and the band’s moral compass, from the beginning, Lyla is along for the ride.

But with fame and acclaim in their grasp, they’ve entered the fast lane.

And they didn’t know it, but they were headed for a crash.

Book Type:

Contemporary Romance

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Review + Excerpt: Fast Lane
By Kristen Ashley

Review + Excerpt: Fast Lane

With FAST LANE, Kristen Ashley seamlessly blends romance and rock and roll, delivering a rousing tale of one band’s rise to stardom, their near crash to rock bottom, and the girl who changed everything.

Using an interview-style narrative, we meet the guys who would become one of the biggest bands in the 80s and 90s—Preacher McCade and the Roadmasters. Some would stay, some would fall from the journey they embarked on, a journey shaped by rumors, sex, drugs and booze.

At sixteen, bassist Jesse Simms started the band in his garage, but it wasn’t until Preacher McCade strode in, that the band became something else entirely. His tortured spirit and talent took them places they’d only dreamed of, both dark and light moments in what would endure for years to come.

And then came Lyla.

“Once he met her, it was and always would be Lyla.”

She was a beacon for Preacher, a muse. For the band, she was a touchstone who forever changed their chemistry. But as the years wore on, and the drugs took hold, and stages turned into stadiums, the Roadmasters fell into a tailspin, with mystery surrounding the years they’d been no longer.

As we read interviews with band members, the truth finally surfaces. And as this cautionary tale unravels, we’re pulled into the music and mayhem alike, a deep nostalgia thrumming with every page.

This is a side of Kristen Ashley we not seen before. Inspired by her own love of music, and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s DAISY JONES & THE SIX, Ashley stirs up a story welling with emotion and one that hits all the right notes. It’s immersive, nostalgic, full of surprises, and everything you’d hope for in this love letter to rock and roll.

 

Preach was an equal opportunity, benevolent almost-rock god.
I remember seeing him with his jeans bunched up to his knees, sitting on the side of the pool, his feet and calves in the water, her friends barely clothed in the water, wet and hanging off his legs and his every word, and he’d glance over at her.
When he was in the mood to spread his love, everyone was invited.
We all were nailing serious tail, but I don’t think anybody but Dave had had a threesome.
But that was not unusual for Preach.
Or more, you know?
That night, I had one girl, he had two, three were in with Tim and Dave, tripping, and Tommy was fucking another one in what we would find out later was one of the girls’ dad’s waterbed.
And looking back, I knew Preacher was more into her than the two he had.
I also got why.
Kind of.

Now, again, it was the eighties. We’re talkin’ Jane Fonda workout videos and Jamie Lee Curtis in that movie Perfect and one-pieces making a comeback because the legs were cut so far up the hips, a girl had to shave.
And Lyla was not…
[Pause]
That.
I mean, there was a reason anorexia became prevalent during that decade and didn’t let go. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t good, but it was the way it was.
But Lyla was not that way.
Tits and ass.
A lot.
Of both.
And, from what I could tell that night, bad attitude.
But fuck, the longer the night wore on, Preacher couldn’t keep his eyes off her.
She’d do a lap to clean up ashtrays or beer bottles or whatever the fuck, and honest to Christ, he didn’t miss a step.
Not that first step.
She had what they now politically correctly, but also, it’s gotta be said, just plain correctly call curves.
Freddie Mercury called them fat-bottomed girls.
But man, she was pretty.
Lotsa hair.
Perfect skin.
You know, and a way about her.
It was part that attitude.
Part the mystery.
You know, tell a man, “don’t touch, you’ll get burned,” he’ll become obsessed with the fire. It’s just how it is.
She screamed don’t touch.
And Preacher, man…
Preacher could be obsessive.
In a big way.

But it was the eyes.
I gotta believe, and this would prove true, in a way, if it wasn’t Preach, it would be somebody. Another rock star. A photographer. A painter. Someone would fall in the muse of Lyla’s eyes.
But as you know, it was Preacher.

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One Comment:


  1. Lisa Muhs said:

    Vilma, is the a HEA? I’ve started reading it and getting the vibe that’s it’s not.

    Reply

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