Rating: 4 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel

Static is one of the best known bands and Marco Chase is one of the best known lead singers. He’s successful and famous and has perfected his bad boy image. After finishing a tour, Marco spends a few days in Ohio on the way to visit his parents and it’s there in an Ohio hotel that he meets Ben Selden.

Ben is in town for a bible group conference and his world is turned upside down at the sight of hot, tattooed Marco. Ben knows that he is gay, but he’s struggling under the weight of a future already planned for him and knows his family will disown him should they ever find out. Meeting Marco awakens everything that Ben has been trying to repress and Ben thinks just a taste of Marco will satisfy him. Being with Marco is not what Ben expected; he doesn’t find something shameful and instead he finds his future. But Ben’s family has expectations for him and while Ben has never stood on his own before, with Marco’s support, Ben’s entire life might be changing.

Because of Ben follows after Not Until Noah in the Star Crossed series, which features famous men with non-famous ones. While we meet Marco briefly in the first book, and Carter and Noah do make an appearance here, this book does work on its own.

I liked Marco and his whole vibe. He left home at 16 to start a band and it’s his talent and determination that made the band a success. He’s in his later 20s now and was recently diagnosed with ADHD and he’s not put off by the diagnosis, he’s interested to learn something new about himself. He knows he’s famous and can work some things to his advantage, but deep down Marco feels alone sometimes, and it all makes for an interesting character. When he sees Ben, he’s attracted to him, and he wants to ruffle his tight “bible camp” appearance, but Marco is not at all prepared for the feelings Ben brings out in him.

Ben’s entire life has been planned for him. After he finishes school, he’s supposed to marry a woman, have a family, and become a deacon in the family church. His father and grandfather have a tight hold on everything Ben does, and Ben has no idea how to change the course of his life.

I was concerned where this book would go with the religion aspect. But even though Ben’s entire life has been lived one way, once he meets Marco, he takes chances and then some more chances. Ben is also so sheltered that he has no idea who Marco is, so there were a lot of allowances to make this work. While I was glad the story didn’t go too deep into the religion aspect and Ben’s oppressive family, I also thought it was a little too light and Ben came to a lot of realizations and made a lot of changes really quickly. Ben and Marco also fall in love immediately. While they complemented each other and were good together, they made a lot of life changing decisions so fast.

I do like this series overall and the theme surrounding falling for a famous person. There are interesting secondary characters as well that will get stories in this interconnected contemporary world.