Author: Tessa Bailey
Genre: Holiday romance
Pages: 351
Release Date: October 3, 2023
“There’s no Beat without a Melody.”
Beat dawkins
My Wreck the Halls Blurb
The Steel Birds broke up decades ago, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before they would even think about reuniting.
Beat Dawkins is the lead singer’s son. He’s lived a charmed-life and runs his mother’s charity that focuses on scholarships for music students. But he’s being blackmailed, and he needs more money now. He won’t “borrow” from the charity, so when he’s approached yet again for a tv opportunity, he considers it. The catch is that he must reunite the Steel Birds for one last reunion show to get paid the full amount.
Melody Gallard is the daughter of the lead guitarist, lyricist, and now potential cult leader from the former Steel Birds. Melody is the opposite of Beat. She’s lived a quiet life, restoring old books and trying to stay out of the media. But when Beat reaches out and needs help, she can’t turn him down. She’s known she’d do anything to help him since they met when they were awkward, lovestruck teens.
Working together for a live and intrusive, morning to night, reality TV show, they work on reuniting the Steel Birds and dealing with their respective moms, falling in love, becoming overnight internet sensations, and uncovering decades old secrets.
My Thoughts on Wreck the Halls
“A song about them would write itself. I’d just be holding the pencil.”
Trina
I’ve had Wreck the Halls on my reading list for Christmas since Halloween, and I finally finished it over my Christmas time off. I had heard from other reviews that it was just so-so. Overall, I think it was a cute and different holiday read. Living in Music City, I thought the premise of a rock band reuniting with the help of their grown kids (while falling in love) was super fun!
I liked Melody’s character a lot; I think it was easy to see how the viewers ended up falling in love with her. She was more relatable than Beat by far. Her bocce games, introverted nature, and book restoration job were very different than Beat’s flashy bachelor lifestyle and running his mom’s charity with fancy galas.
I found Beat’s character to be a bit aggravating. His life was super guilt-ridden from the privilege that he had, and he made poor choices because of it. I don’t want to spoil his blackmail secret, but I think he could have helped himself so much sooner by just letting the necessary parties in on the secret from the beginning instead of wasting so much money. But I guess then we wouldn’t have a story because he needs the money to pay the blackmailer!
His guilt also plays into his sex life where he mentions that he must keep his personal life separate from pleasure because of his sexual needs. We’re left wondering for most of the book what this is, and I’ll tell you now, it’s a fairly tame kink. But it adds to his mystery I suppose.
Melody and Beat were a little insta-lovey. I don’t think meeting someone for 10 minutes when you’re 15 creates much backstory for why you’re instantly in love. However, they do understand what each other has gone through, and with names like Melody and Beat; I guess it’s just fate.
In terms of the moms, I actually liked Octavia a lot, and I didn’t really care for Trina. Which is probably how you’re supposed to feel about them based on the book.
I liked the aspect of the live TV show, and honestly the producers helped move the story along by creating the plot! I’m not sure how realistic it really was though with all the alone time and mic’s getting turned off.
Also, this was actually my first Tessa Bailey book! I didn’t know what to expect from her writing, but I thought it was good! I was a little disappointed at the lack of epilogue and incredibly short resolution at the end of the book.
Farewell Thoughts
Let me know if you read Wreck the Halls – in the comments or over on Instagram! If you liked this spoiler-free book review, I’d love for you to share this post!
