Never Been Shipped by Alicia Thompson 
Published by Berkley on June 10, 2025
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 400
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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A band reunion may be enough to change two musicians' tune on love in this electric romance from USA Today bestselling author Alicia Thompson.
Micah's relationship to music is complicated. As teenagers, her band took off after being featured on a popular TV show, but the group barely released their sophomore album before breaking up. Now, over a decade later, the band is reuniting for one more performance on a themed cruise, and Micah is determined to learn from her past mistakes -- no losing herself in the music, and no losing her heart along the way.
John misses playing in a band, and mostly he misses Micah, who'd been his best friend until the music stopped. Back then, he didn't take the lead, either in his guitar parts or while he sat back and watched her date another bandmate. John's never been one to rock the boat, but he's faced with another chance now that this cruise has brought music -- and Micah -- back in his life.
Onboard, Micah can't help but see John with brand new eyes, and John's feelings only intensify as the discordant band's tension grows to a breaking point. With five days at sea, there's a ticking clock on anything that might develop between them, and they'll have to decide if their relationship is destined to be more than a one-hit wonder.
A nice second-chance romance.
I like Alicia Thompson’s characters. In Never Been Shipped, Micah Presley was the lead singer for the ElectricOh! along with her best friend, John Populin, and classmates, Frankie, Steve and Ryder. They hit it big right before High School graduation. Things were going well for the teen band, including a European Tour, until Micah’s father and manager convinced her she needed to go solo. A failing relationship with Ryder did more to convince Micah that it was time to leave ElectriOh! It wasn’t long before Micah’s solo career also came to a halt.
The band might have slipped into oblivion except that their most popular song, If Only, was featured on a popular paranormal teen show called Nightshifters. Of course, one matter of strife between Micah and Ryder had been that their most popular song was the one song not written by Ryder. It was written by Micah and John.
When Nighshifters is putting together a reunion cruise, they want ElectricOh! to reunite and play If Only and some of their other tunes for the fans. Ryder and John are the only member who continued with music. Micah really wants an excuse not to, but with everyone else is willing to go, she eventually relents.
Tension is high anytime Ryder is in the room, but spending time with John makes Micah realize how much she has missed him from her life. They were inseparable as teens with John always at her house.
John has always cared about Micah but was too shy as a teen to let her know but the more time they spend together, the more they remember how intertwined their lives were and suddenly, Micah realizes she wasted all that time with Ryder when her heart always belonged to John.
THOUGHTS:
Fans, and especially Ryder, come down hard on Micah as the cause for the band’s breakup, and while it was Ryder’s controlling behavior that Micah was running from, no one seems to remember that they were all about 16 years old when fame found them. I doubt there is one 16 year old out there making their best life decisions and certainly not a teen under the strain of fame and fortune and the pressures of a successful music career. Between John and Ryder, it is questionable that she even gave the annoying Ryder a passing glance but again, at 16 she fell for his attention and flattery.
Oddly enough both John and Micah are still coasting through life off of royalties from ElectricOh! Micah is living by herself, not really doing much of anything while John is living with several roommates and playing guitar for a couple of bands. I felt like neither of them really moved on and were floating moorless through life. While bandmate Steve at least got married, had a kid and was working at Best Buy. We see this more with Micah as the most she has done is help her sister open a beauty salon and sometimes going home to help her out. We have seen this theme in other stories where money doesn’t buy happiness since Micah had enough money to buy a condo in LA and live on but her days blurred as she wasn’t participating in life.
Alicia Thompson does well creating characters with depth to them. Even in a simple story of two high school best friends reuniting and finding love, we really got to know Micah and John and why it took them so long to find each other.
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