KYLIE never expected to be stuck on a tour bus with a pampered princess and her boyfriend’s ex.
A troubled artist struggling to hold onto his career...
TRACE thought he was finally getting to do things his way. Until the label added co-headliner Gretchen Gibson, the only person in country music with more issues than him, to his No Apologies tour.
Surrounded by tabloid rumors and people they can't trust, Kylie and Trace need each other more than ever. But the choices they make will change everything.
Because chasing your dreams and following your heart don’t always lead you to the same place…
Caisey Quinn is so good at pulling you into her stories and her characters. When I read her books, especially GWG and GOT, I feel like I am in the room with these characters. I can hear their voices when they speak, and I find that if someone interrupts my reading, I’m momentarily surprised that they don’t have a Southern accent. It takes me a second to re-orient to the real world. Maybe because this is a world I’m familiar with, a world I avoid. In my review for GWG, I mentioned my self-imposed exile from the South, and the way that Caisey Quinn can do what few others can—make me homesick. She’s able to do this because the characters that she creates are so real, and they are so, so Southern. When I read these books, I know these people.
Take Lulu, for example, Kylie’s best friend from back home in Pride, Oklahoma. The main characters in these books are amazing—lovable, complex, funny, and terribly human—but if suddenly those characters walked away, I would still read these books just for Lulu. We don’t see that much of Lulu (though a little bird told me that there’s more to come from this little belle), but when she’s present, she is unforgettable. She has the best one-liners. Some examples of classic Lulu one-liners include: “Those wenches giving you hell? Need me to cunt punch one of them? Or both of them?” Or how about, “I’ll be sure and French kiss my cousin for you.” Oh Lulu, where were you my freshman year of college when those Jersey’s girls were giggling and asking me if my mom was also my cousin? Lulu’s feisty and loyal and fun, and you don’t really want to cross her, but you’ll be wishing she was your very best friend. Come to Girl On Tour for Kylie and Trace, stay for Lulu.;)
Speaking of Kylie, I love her just as much, if not more, than I did in Girl With Guitar. If Lulu is the Batman of the one-liner super squad, Kylie is the Robin. My favorite Kylie-ism in GOT: “I’m from Oklahoma, honey. I can bless your heart and hate your guts all at the same time.” If you are intimately familiar with the culture of the South, this one line will make you smile for days. Kylie’s growing up, she’s learning fast, but at her core she will always be the same person. She just is who she is, a mix of softness and flint. She’s so sensitive and caring, loyal, protective of the people she loves, and she leads with her heart (and her mouth). Cross her and she’ll let you know, hurt someone she cares about and she’ll tell you about it. She knows her inability to lead with anything but her big heart is probably going to get her into trouble, but she just accepts it. She has this “Well, it needs to be said, so I guess I’m going to have to have to say it” attitude backed up by girl cojones big enough to shoulder through the consequences. I picture her as a sort of angel in a leather jacket. With cowboy boots.:)
Kylie has a lot of growing up to do in GOT; changes are coming at her faster than she can duck, and all the while, she’s trying her hardest to hold onto the one person who means the most, Trace Corbin. She’s stuck on a bus with two other girls she doesn’t know and isn’t sure she likes, time to talk to Trace is scarce at best, and now he’s touring with the female version of himself (as Kylie dubs his new touring partner, Gretchen Gibson). Then there’s the press and the constant barrage of photos and rumors about both she and Trace that are always waiting at the end of the day to trip up her confidence and break Trace’s very fragile hold on the better version of himself he’s been working so hard on.
If you’ve ever felt like a complete and utter fuck-up of a human being, then Trace will break your heart in this book. We knew from Girl with Guitar that Trace had some big, old demons after him; we knew about his alcoholic, abusive father and Trace’s own fears that he’ll turn out no better—that in fact, he is no better. We know how completely he loves the women in his life, his two sisters and now Kylie; how much he wants the best for them and how inadequate he feels to give it to them. We also know that he gives them so much. He gives them everything and they adore him for it. They know he has flaws—they accept and understand that everyone does—and they love him anyway with their whole hearts. They want the best for him, and they never waver in their love and commitment to him. If only Trace could understand this, he wouldn’t spend so much time punishing himself for his shortcomings and he’d take the help they so willingly and whole-heartedly offer. If he understood this, he might give himself a break.
One of the things I love most about GOT is being inside of Trace’s head. I think Caisey is so dead-on in her perspective of him, in writing his voice. The Trace that we see in GOT isn’t the head-on, self-destructive Trace of Girl with Guitar. Oh no. This is a fighting-his-demons-but-can’t-quite-make-it-on-his-own Trace. This is the I-want-to-be-a-better-man Trace that we met at the end of GWG, and he’s keeping on. I LOVED Trace in GWG—loved him—I never thought he was a super-hero, an ultimately perfect book boyfriend--and that’s what I love about him. In GOT, Trace is so heartbreakingly human; he’s a man at a breaking point who’s trying so hard to do the best he can. I can see Trace, I can feel Trace—I know Trace. And you will too. The way he reacts to Gretchen throughout the book, the way she mirrors the Trace that he doesn’t want to be anymore but has a hard time fighting off was a nice touch, too.
But there’s something about Trace that I love that I find very difficult to articulate, and I think this is what makes me avoid writing reviews of these books. Trace has a certain kind of charm; it’s Southern all the way but there’s more to it. I’ve always believed that this particular charm was a special characteristic of my grandfather’s generation, that WWII generation. It’s the ability to say something very simple and sweet in a way that can turn an entire day around and will come out sounding like the most sincere thing you’ve ever heard. Out of anyone else’s mouth, you’d call it a line; but from the men in my grandpa’s generation that I grew up with in the South, it was just this kind of magical quality about them. They could say something as simple as Trace’s standard, “Hey, pretty girl,” and you’d answer them with a smile that you felt all the way in your toes—which is just what they wanted. I think this is what people are talking about when they get all goofy about Southern men, but I’m here to tell you—every man in the South does not have it. Don’t drop your life and move South looking for it; it’s not waiting for you on every street corner. Men in the South are just as stupid as they are everywhere (and wonderful too, you know how it goes), but some of them, girls, some of them have this quality that will knock you on your ass. Now, I’ve only met one man my own age who had this quality (hence the reason I attributed this quality so heavily to the Greatest Generation), but to be fair, I hit the highway in my running shoes when I was 18, so I didn’t have that much time to properly research the prevalence of this charm in my own generation. I will tell you that the one time I did encounter this particular quality in a Southern man, I was 18, and I almost ran off and married him in the middle of a dark South Carolina night. It’s powerful stuff. Maybe it’s not geographically limited, I don’t know, but it sure seems like it.
All of this is to say that Trace has this quality. Every time he said, “Hey, pretty girl,” to Kylie, I got a little sniffly. Those three little words coming from him brought back a lifetime of magical men that are gone and kind of broke my heart (but in the best way possible). It’s this quality in Trace that takes me a few days to get past; it makes me a little quick to cry for a while after I read. The subtle ways in which Caisey Quinn has imbued Trace with this charm is so damn crafty that I was helpless against it. I think you will be too. Add all of Trace’s sweetness, charm and outright hotness together with the vulnerability we see him struggling with throughout GOT, and you get a book boyfriend that you can damn near smell he’s so real. You won’t just want to read this book—you’ll want to eat it.
Good luck, girls. You’re in for a good ride.
P.S. There’s a little bit of a cliffy at the end but don’t get your panties all twisted. You can handle it. If you’ve been paying attention, you can see Trace coming back around, and really, who could say no to him? Bring on Girl in Love, Caisey Quinn!
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