The Legend of Artho King - Blog Stop and Review

Title: The Legend of Arturo King

Series: Legendary Rock Stars #1

Author: L.B. Dunbar

Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance

Release Date: January 27, 2015

My name is Arturo King, and I’m told I’m a legend in music. My band is called the Nights and we got our start at the underground Round Table in New York City. Raised by a foster father, I didn’t know the extent of my inheritance until I was twenty-one, and it was all more than I bargained for. I wanted to play the guitar and rule the world with song, but I learned I have a mother from old money, a dead father who was once a real estate mogul, and a record company that needed some rebuilding. Mure Linn, my friend and mentor, has been by my side through it all, teaching me to play, strengthening my lyrics, and guiding me in the music industry. There was one area he couldn’t guide me, though, and that was love. Guinevere DeGrance changed everything for me, I suppose, including the reason I’m here learning the legend of my life without remembering any of it.

The legendary rock star series begins...

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Review

The Legend of Arturo King by LB Dunbar - Reviewed by Klaire Sutherland for Chicks Controlled by Books. 5 Stonking Stars

I took a huge risk requesting to review this for two reasons. The first being that unfortunately I am one of those readers that don't particularly gravitate towards books about Rockers, I don't often enjoy them. And secondly I have LB Dunbar's Sound Advice that I have struggled to finish reading. So I was interested to see if this would hold my attention and perhaps sway me. I can quite confidently say that LB Dunbar had me hooked by the 3rd page of the first chapter and I am so very glad I took this chance! I loved this book.

It is, by far, my favourite book of this year. In subject terms it's clever, really clever! I know the Legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It is whispered that Merlin, who is heavily associated with Arthur, lies burried along the banks of the River Tweed. A river I've walked along, swam in, fished on, a river I live not so far from. So yes, I know Arthur's legend well. I was really glad to have that knowledge whilst reading this, it gave the story so much more. LB Dunbar didn't try to recreate it but put her own twist on characters and events. It worked beautifully!

The words are positively lyrical, and I mean that in both a musical and a literary sense. There's something poetic in the way the words are woven that I often gave a little sigh at how they wrapped around my head. I see a growth in LB Dunbar, wether it's the story or the maturity of the author I have no idea. It just is! And the title is absolutely perfect for what this tale is. This IS the legend of Arturo King from his birth, to his name , to his music, to his love. I found myself swept up in a modern day tale of love and loss that I found breathtaking at times.

The characters are described in such a way that you know who they are from the old tales, and you know how they fit into the storyline. Everything just fits, but it's obscure enough for you to feel like you are reading a story in it's own right. The old world references scattered throughout the book gave it an almost nostalgic feel that settles into your bones and stays there long after you have finished reading.
There's no cliffhanger here, it may appear to the reader that there is. It's the perfect ending although it may not seem that way. I've purposefully not rehashed the story in my review as the synopsis speaks for itself. If you read anything this year please let it be this. It will hold your heart and your head and you will fall in love with the legend that is Arturo. Just simply amazing.... 5 Stars!!
*Gifted for an honest review*

Excerpt The Legend of Arturo King by L.B. Dunbar ©

I closed in on the last line of the refrain and turned to look at Lans, signaling the direction of the crowd and the shift of the song. I had been clutching the microphone on the top of its stand, both hands wrapped around it, holding firm. I often told myself to think of the mic as a woman. Caress it in passion or clutch it in lust. It made no difference as long as this prop seemed an extension of my instrument, my voice. I released the mic slowly and shifted my own body slightly to angle to the right toward Lans. Glancing over the crowd, what I told myself would be one final time before I pulled my head back into the gig on stage, I saw her.

She was a vision in white. Literally. Her long flowing dress stood out amongst the crowd of dark T-shirts, darker jeans, and occasional bare skin. Her skin was bare in places as well. Slender arms hung at her sides, completely exposed. The pull of the dress bodice was up around her neck in some fashion that also exposed her shoulders, an area that I found could be very sensitive on a woman. Her shoulders just might redefine sensual in my brief opinion as I further took her in. The dress fell to the floor, but I could sense that those hidden legs were long, and the way the dress hugged the undisclosed portions of her body, I knew she was slender, sleek, and sumptuous in all the right places. Her hair looked dark, long and wavy, but the blue glow of the floor lights hinted at some brighter highlights.

I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes at first, but then she stepped forward under a light as if she were coming to me. They were lake blue and I felt them pierce my soul. I saw a sparkle in them as my own locked with hers. She stood still for a moment, suddenly frozen in my trance. I watched her lick her lips and I felt that lick in my pants. I didn’t want to look away as a wave of … something … crawled through my body, but she did.

She turned to her left, but I couldn’t see who stood there in the shadows. Her head returned forward and she seemed to be listening to the guitar, taking in the stage, but refusing to look again in my direction. I felt like I was willing her to notice me instead of the blank stare she focused above the bands’ heads. I almost turned to see what could be so interesting behind me. Almost, but I didn’t dare to look away from her.

She moved after a slight shift again from her left. She was obviously parting ways from someone near her and she slowly made her way through the crowded pit floor. As if the audience knew someone otherworldly was within their presence, the crowd parted slowly as she approached each person, making a clean-cut line across the wooden floorboards without another glance in the direction of the stage. Watching her walk sparked an extra beat in my heart and a throb in my pants. If she was sensual just crossing the floor, I dared to imagine what she would be like in my bed.

My vision focused solely on her subtle movement. Silky, I would have described her. She moved slowly, as if she were a ribbon sliding, slipping, through dark water. The white dress continued to glow from the dim blue lights, accentuating her slither through the waves of people. I was only vaguely aware of the guitar riff coming to an end at my left and I reached blindly for the microphone. This was a move that took no thought for me. It was as natural as breathing to hold the warm metal. I felt a slight catch in my throat as the words were climbing to escape my vocal cords. Lans hit his last note and I held my breath for the pause before a new cord was hit and the words burst forth.

It was the last look, of last night

In the last moment,

That took my breath and made me see

You might be lost before you found me.

            You cried my name, as you came,

            I took that pain and

            Made you see, you might be lost,

            But you found me.

            My own words took on new meaning as I trailed her final motion. This tune had a new emphasis and I knew I was singing to her like a siren calls a sailor. There was just something about her presence, even if I felt she was suddenly ignoring me. She seemed to pause as I poured myself into those lyrics. You found me echoed in my head as I pinned her with my eyes. She moved her long hair over one shoulder, causing me to suck in a breath at the full exposure of her alabaster back. From behind, she was completely revealed; only a slip of cloth at her neck must hold the dress over those supple breasts I massaged with my eyes moments ago, and even without full light I knew that toned back held dimples at the base above the low sling of material that clung to her backside and draped down to the floor.

            I noticed her breathing was slightly accelerated as her graceful shoulders lifted like a shrug and it certainly couldn’t be from overexertion crossing the crowded bar floor. She moved as if she floated. She had not returned my gaze, which I knew she must feel caressing across her soft skin. It could only mean one thing to my veteran assessment of women. She wasn’t interested, and that never happened to me. Women were always interested in me.

I realized suddenly where she stood. She had paused before a door to the left of the bar. I knew this door. It was made to blend seamlessly into the wall, looking like heavy olden bricks, like the surrounding walls. Only the keypad to the right gave away any semblance of a passageway. A person needed a special access code to pass through that door into the hall behind.

I watched her press her fingers deftly across the silver numbers and push the door gently inward into a darkened passage beyond without a single glance back over those sexy shoulders in my direction. I had to know who she was as the door closed, cutting off my view of her. It was almost instantaneous that I knew I wanted her, but this whole scene could only mean two things were true: she was somehow connected to Leo DeGrance, and she didn’t want me. And I believed them both. Almost.

I’d like to say I was always a writer. I’d also like to say that I wrote every day of my life since a child. That I took the teaching advice I give my former students because writing every day improves your writing. I’d like to say I have my ten-thousand hours that makes me a proficient writer. But I can’t say any of those things. I did dream of writing the “Great American Novel” until one day a friend said: Why does it have to be great? Why can’t it just be good and tell a story?

As a teenager, I wrote your typical love-angst poetry that did occasionally win me an award and honor me with addressing my senior high school class at our Baccalaureate Mass. I didn’t keep a journal because I was too afraid my mom would find it in the mattress where I kept my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that I wasn’t allowed to read as a twelve year old.

I can say that books have been my life. I’m a reader. I loved to read the day I discovered “The Three Bears” as a first grader, and ever since then, the written word has been my friend. Books were an escape for me. An adventure to the unknown. A love affair I’d never know. I could be lost for hours in a book.

So why writing now? I had a story to tell. It haunted me from the moment I decided if I just wrote it down it would go away. But it didn’t. Three years after writing the first draft, a sign (yes, I believe in them) told me to fix up that draft and work the process to have it published. That’s what I did. But one story let to another, and another, and another. Then a new idea came into my head and a new storyline was created. 

I was accused (that’s the correct word) of having an overactive imagination as a child, as if that was a bad thing. I’ve also been accused of having the personality of a Jack Russell terrier, full of energy, unable to relax, and always one step ahead. What can I say other than I have stories to tell and I think you’ll like them. If you don’t, that’s okay. We all have our book boyfriends. We all have our favorites. Whatever you do, though, take time for yourself and read a book.

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