Mariah’s ARC Review of “Missing the Beat” by Cait Marie

By: Mariah Brown

Cait Marie has finished the Bennu Firebird series with her third installment, which is titled Missing the Beat. I absolutely loved everything about this book. I was a little worried because it was the shortest book in the series, but Cait did not let me down with the length. It was perfect.

In this book, we get to follow along with Maya and Alexander Lewis’s story to finally figure out what happened in their past and how they try to work things out for their present. I enjoyed how Cait brought in all of her past characters into this book. Yes, it can be considered a standalone book, but if you read the first two books, you will know exactly who all the characters are. I also recommend reading The Last Summer and The Final Chance to get the full effect.

This book was definitely one that I could not put down. The pacing of the story was great, and all the characters just melded together. I really loved how there was a love-hate relationship between two of the characters. It made me want to keep reading to find out if they ever make up or not. This is why I love reading Cait’s romance novels, they really have life to them outside of all the romance. There is a plot that makes it much more interesting.

Maya was such an amazing character to get to know. She had so much life in her and had a lot of fun with her friends. It was interesting to peek into her mind and see how she thought since she was staring in her first movie as the main character. I truly enjoyed how Cait wrote about her and created her own light.

The scenes in the book were very well written. The scenes had enough details to get the point across as to what was going on, and they were done very tastefully. They faded out at a certain point so they would not get too graphic with details. This is definitely a college romance novel.

There were some darker themes to the book that Cait informed us about before reading. She handled those scenes very well. The details were not overly specific, there were just mentions of childhood abuse and family abuse.

Overall, I rate this book a 5/5 stars. It had all the excitement and joy that I expect to see out of a romance novel and more. I really love Cait’s writing and cannot wait for my next read by her.

I received and ARC for an honest review.