Hopelessly Devoted by Terri Anne Browning was the ninth book in the Rockers’ Legacy series. Although the other books don’t necessarily have to be read in order, this definitely needs to be read after the first eight books in the series as it was a series of follow ups from the previous eight books.
Hopelessly Devoted was divided into seven parts based on characters from the previous books of the series: Mia, Nevaeh, Arella, Shaw, Doe, Trinity and Piper (in that order). The only character missing a full story was Violet (book three) and the author addressed why at the end. Although each part focused on one character, most of the other characters were also present as a supporting character in each part, including Violet. Additionally, most parents and siblings from the original series were also actively present.
Although I enjoyed a follow up from each couple and the entire Rocker Family, I stayed pretty confused and had to constantly go back to other books to fill in some blanks. My recommendation for future books similar to this is to provide a quick introduction with a family tree so as to quickly remember who belongs to whom (siblings, parents, etc) since they were typically only referred to as dad, mom, aunt, brother, etc. Additionally, it felt as if the timelines were all over the place from part to part and treated as separate stories with no real regard to what just occurred in the previous part. As part of the introduction, a timeline of where the story falls would be helpful or putting the stories in order and showing a segue from one to the other would be helpful. Lastly, I think there was an editing issue because starting with the fourth part, the cover page addressed the wrong characters, ie: Hopelessly Devoted to Arella introduced Shaw, Hopelessly Devoted to Shaw introduced Doe and so on. This is an easy fix and may be corrected by the time this review is posted.
As for the stories themselves, I fully enjoyed them. They picked up from an expected HEA from their original story, but included a real life issue. Some issues were more dramatic then others, but all addressed current conflicts within their relationship and/or family dynamic. My rating is more for the current series fans versus new readers - new readers need to start from the beginning. Otherwise, series fans should totally enjoy the updates and story progressions.
Additionally, the author wrote a note at the end and explained her thought process before and after Hopelessly Devoted was written. We can expect more similar to this over the next year in the form of novellas, which I think is a great idea.
All in all, I enjoyed the book and my issues were more with the structure and editing versus the storytelling - and all were easy fixes! I look forward to more in the series and hopefully in time we’ll get the third generation as well!