Customer Reviews

His Secret Past (Harlequin Super Romance)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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In Hoboken, siblings Jake and Anna Walsh have had some success with their documentary film making company Blue Magic. However Jake is tired of globetrotting so he informs his sister he is quitting to stay home more frequently with his significant other partner Rob.

Anna persuades Jake to help her make a final film together, which he agrees. They will produce a documentary on the second most famous rock act to come out of New Jersey, Five Star. Apparently the group is coming together to make their first album in fifteen years. However, Anna has a personal reason as she wants to know the truth behind the band's touring bus crash that killed her best friend. However, she is stunned when the lead singer Mason Star is not a pompous superstar, but a loving father fearing he will lose custody of his son and Mulligan's community center that he built and manages. To her chagrin, Anna finds herself falling in love with him.

This engaging contemporary romance hooks readers from the moment that the lead couple meets as their attraction could light up that city across the Hudson and never slows down. Anna is so sure that Mason is a wasted druggie until their initial encounter and she reassesses her thoughts. Fans will enjoy this delightful tale as HIS SECRET PAST may prevent this loving couple from sharing a passionate present and future.

Harriet Klausner

How do you make a romance featuring a retired rock star believable? You make him into a real person, instead of a cardboard cliche. In HIS SECRET PAST, former rocker Mason Star now has a teen son to contend with, and I love the way Hartman takes the time to develop their relationship realistically. Heroine Anna Walsh is well-drawn, too, as the documentary filmmaker who wants to know the truth about what happened in the bus crash that ended Mason's rock career. But the closer she gets to the truth, the closer she gets to Mason -- and the more she's afraid of breaking a good man's heart.

Mason Star may have been kicked out of his band, Five Star, but he got his life together and made himself a better man. Drugs, sex and rock and roll may have been what he thought he needed in life, but after he got left behind, he found rehab and a clean and sober life. Mason left behind not only the bad, but the fame and fortune. He has spent his life raising his son, Chris and creating a home at Mulligan's for those wanting a better future.

Anna Walsh is a documentary maker with an agenda. As a high school senior she and her best friend attended a Five Star concert and her best friend ended up dead in a horrible accident. Anna feels her family and friends blame her, and she needs to find out what really happened that night. When she approaches Mason about a documentary he turns her down - until he finds out his home is in trouble and he needs her help.

Anna and Mason's coming together can only be described as fate. When a girl gets a chance to meet her teenage idol, it can only be described as a dream date. Although she doesn't expect to feel drawn to a man she feels ruined her life, she finds herself physically attracted to him, and emotionally charged by the man he has become. Anna and Mason have sparks flying from the moment they meet, and while both fight the attraction, they are destined to have a future.

Anna is a perfect heroine. She is a real woman, she has a career and plans for the future. When her plans take a nosedive, she makes lemonade from the lemons, and finds a new path for her life. As she finds that she doesn't need to live out of a duffle bag, and makes a home for herself, she becomes even stronger, and more loveable. Anna is a character to treasure. Mason is a strong, caring man whose stability balances Anna and shows her what could be, if she is ready to settle down. As these two take a chance on love, both make their way into a new life.

Review Courtesy of LoveRomancesandmore

A few weeks ago I saw this novel in the book section at Goodwill for $2 and snatched it up because the retired rock star thing appealed to me. Then, last night, I had kind of a crummy, stress-packed day and all I wanted was a little bit of an escape. Something light. Quick. That maybe I could read in one night. This was just the ticket.

His Secret Past tells the story of Mason and Anna. Mason used to be a Jersey-boy rock god (Think Bruce Springstein) who's life and career then spiraled downward as he got more and more into drugs and drink. Eventually, though, he pulled himself out of it, founded a sort of commune type place where other recovering addicts or just struggling adults can live to get support while they try and get on their feet. About a decade before the book starts one of Mason's old groupie flings drops off her seven year old son with Mason and basically says "He's all yours now." By the time the book starts, the boy, Christian, is 17 and, although he and Mason have had a good relationship things are now a little rocky between them because Chris wants to quit high school and be a rock god like his father and Mason is desperately afraid that Chris will follow in his footsteps in all the worst ways.

The heroine, Anna, is a documentary filmmaker who's been running a successful production company with her brother, but now her brother wants out of the nomadic film business so he can start laying down roots. Anna is totally convinced she can't be a filmmaker anymore without her brother, but when he agrees to film one last movie with her she decides it has to be important. She decides to get the scoop on an infamous tour bus crash which started Mason's downward spiral and also killed her best friend in high school.

This plot is pretty intricate because in addition to the tour bus crash and Mason's troubles with his son, the community he runs is in jeopardy from the zoning board and there are a few other minor subplots. It was a lot of stuff to pack into a category book but by and large the book's complexities worked for me.

I really liked a lot of the humor in this book. There were several moments where I grinned to myself. This was one of my favorite parts as Mason and his son prepare for a friend's wedding:

"First wedding I was ever in," Mason said, "the tuxes were powder blue. The shirts had ruffles, also powder blue, and we wore white loafers."

..."Dad, the growing-up-Jersey stories scare people. You have got to keep them to yourself."

Mason was a fairly appealing hero as things go. I really appreciated the moments where he'd slip into his rock star charm to get what he wanted from people and I could have done with even more of them. It did, unfortunately, ring a little false to me that someone who was so invested in his music and so good at it would abandon that talent so completely as he does. The rock star thing was very much in his past and I would have enjoyed if the music part at least had been a bit more relevant to the present.

Anna as heroine was all right. One of her shining moments for me was when she's helping Mason with his golf game. I also liked the way she interacted with Mason's son Chris. Those moments felt very real to me and well balanced between showing that she cared about Chris but that he really was too old for mothering at this point.

My big stumbling block with Anna, and the book as a whole, was her absolute, unshakable belief that she couldn't continue to be a filmmaker without her brother around to help her. For one thing, I was never really clear what her brother's part of their company was. She seemed to be the director and the editor on their projects. She films pretty much everything as far as I can tell so, aside from emotional support, I just didn't understand why he was so vital. Also, the resolution at the end of the book for Anna's next life pursuit just seemed to me like a horrible second best and I don't think it will really satisfy her creative energies at all, which makes me doubt the HEA to some extent.

Another issue I had was that the resolution of the bus crash subplot and the reveal of what happened to Anna's friend was saved until far too late in the book. Within the last ten pages basically the reader and Anna find out what happened. It is sad and dark, and yet Anna, immediately after learning what really happened to her friend on the bus, instead of feeling solemn or subdued is pretty much ready to jump Mason's bones five minutes after her tells her what happened. That just really jarred me out of the story. Finding out depressing stuff like that doesn't generally put me in the mood for loving and I think it won't for most people. It would probably have the opposite effect, I think.

The combination of Anna's career essentially being thrown in the trash and the late reveal of the truth about the bus crash ultimately dragged down the last half of the book for me, making it hard to fully appreciate the happily ever after for Anna and Mason.

That said, this was a quick, enjoyable read, and it did manage to cleanse the stress gunk out of my system after a long day. I also liked the second chance at life aspect of Mason's story and how he turned himself around so completely to become not just a responsible adult but a great father. I'm not sorry I bought it, even though it won't be a keeper for me.