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MR✒️ Book Review ✒️
Do you enjoy stories about music/bands?
#HotWax by M L Rio
Tradeback
385 pages
#Historical Fiction #Thriller
@jonathanballpublishers
There’s something intoxicating about stories drenched in sweat, spotlight, and bad decisions — and Hot Wax by M. L. Rio absolutely leans into that chaos.
But let me be honest with you from the start: this one took me a while to get into. I wasn’t instantly hooked. It felt more like tuning instruments before the show than smashing a guitar on stage. I had to find the rhythm first. Once I did, though, the story began to hum.
Suzanne as a child, magnetised by her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars, feels authentic in that reckless, wide-eyed way only a ten-year-old can. The 1989 tour setting is deliciously chaotic — sticky floors, backstage tension, ambition simmering under stage lights. And when the drama between the band members kicks in? Oh, it kicks.
The internal power struggles within Gil and the Kills were easily my favourite part. The jealousy. The ego. The hunger for fame. It gave me strong Daisy Jones & The Six energy — that same combustible mix of talent and toxicity — but this felt darker, more intimate, and more haunted by consequence.
I also really appreciated the relationship dynamics, especially the polyamorous aspect. It didn’t feel sensationalised; it felt messy and human and complicated. The emotional entanglements weren’t neat. They weren’t always comfortable. But they were layered and believable. Everyone in this story is driven by want — and that want leaves bruises.
And when the story shifts into something darker, it truly finds its edge. The violence, the guilt, the decades Suzanne spends trying to disappear — all of it adds weight. Her later road trip, chasing answers and a version of herself she lost, felt almost fever-dream-like. There’s something powerful about a woman trying to reclaim the parts of herself she buried for survival.
More on the blog: https://mrpinkink.wordpress.com/2026/02/23/book-review-hot-wax-by-m-l-rio/
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@mr.pink.ink
