Stage Fright Book Review

Book Description

Jessica Nash loves to sing but is paralyzed every time she gets on stage. After blowing an excruciating audition, she wonders if she should give up on her dream. She’s already committed to a weeklong choral tour of England with her church choir, though, and as a single mom with a limited income, this might be her only chance to travel.

The trip gets off to a rocky start when Jessica has to sit next to Martin, a once-famous British tenor whose career plummeted in a scandal, on the flight to London. Is it her imagination, or does he seem to aim his bitterness toward womankind specifically at Jessica? And to make things worse, once they arrive Jessica discovers she has to room with the choir’s thorny lead soprano.

When Nick, their handsome tour guide, takes a special interest in showing Jessica the sights, things finally seem to be falling into place. She starts to relax and let herself be wooed against the backdrop of the charming English countryside. But is she ready to give him as much as he’s asking for?

Things aren’t as simple as they seem. Almost every person on the tour, it seems, is hiding a secret, and before her English holiday is over Jessica will find herself stretched and tested in every direction—including the soloist’s place center stage.

“Stage Fright is a captivating novel sure to win the hearts of readers.” – New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hauck

My Thoughts

As someone with a singing background, I was immediately intrigued by this story’s synopsis. The main character, Jessica, was a member of a church choir, yet she had horrible stage fright. The first chapter even showed her going into a solo audition that was, in a word – nightmare! As long as she had the presence of others sharing the stage with her, her stage fright stayed buried. But if there was even a hint of being singled out for a solo or singled out by the choir director with a question during choir practice, that unwanted attention would instantly make her clam up.

The church choir was scheduled for a choir tour in and around London, England. This was the most exciting part of the story as the author took me through numerous locations on my traveling bucket list. As they travel from place to place, Jessica earned the attention of the tour bus driver, Nick. I never cared for him from the beginning as it seemed all he wanted was a quick fling with an American. Nick, along with Clare and Jerry, were my least favorite characters – but I attribute that to the author writing their portions so well!

Probably my biggest issue was thinking that this was going to be a Christian fiction novel. This author has written several Amish fiction novels in the past published by Christian publishers. When I read the synopsis and saw the mention of a church choir, I thought I would be reading another CF novel. While some would consider it a clean novel (no bad language, no overtly sexual scenes), there were some moments that I would rather have not read since CF is the only genre I read. There were mentions of a person quitting the choir when they returned home as it meant they could now sleep in on Sundays. There was a scene in a hotel room between two characters that suggested a one-night stand. Am I so naive to think that Christians don’t have these struggles or issues? Absolutely not. But if you’re going to have a choir representing a church and taking a trip halfway around the world, you’d think that there would be indications of a Christian lifestyle other than what I read. Why they had to be mentioned as a church choir at all made no sense to me. It could have simply been a community choir that sang sacred/classical music.

All in all, the story was cute and an easy read, but really not for me. After previously seeing so many 5 star reviews, I thought I would be settling in for a great read. It was a slow start, and I had to get about 2/3 of the way into the book before I really became interested thanks to a little bit of mystery that was thrown in. This was my first experience with this author, and while I didn’t enjoy this book, I plan to try her Amish fiction.

3 Stars

Many thanks to the author for providing a copy for review. I was not required to write a positive review.