Beyond the Bright Lights

By: Settle Myer

Narrated by: Avery Hackstedde, Deena Ingley

LANA

It's been nearly two decades since I lost the love of my life and I'm still struggling to move on. My grief plays on a perpetual cycle, and every time I think I’m ready to move forward—bam—something new throws me back into the depths of it. The latest hit comes in the form of a movie being made about the inspiring life my fiancé lived. Things go from bad to worse when the actor cast to play him waltzes into my bar, begging me to help him with the role. “Help me become Tyler Taylor.” Mylan Andrews is younger than me and absolutely infuriating, but his desperate plea echoes in my head. I have to help him—for Tyler.

MYLAN

Fresh out of my third stint in rehab, I land a movie deal that just may save my career. Everything’s finally looking up. Then I meet her. Lana Young is older, wiser, and a knockout. Oh, and she’s also the key to helping me with this role. Except, the more time we spend together, the more my desire for her grows. Could she be the one to help me win back control of my life, or is she merely another temptation placed in my path?

Beyond the Bright Lights is an age gap, plus-size romance. My female main character is 15 years older than my male main character. Please note: this book deals with a lot of tough topics which are listed below—some may include spoilers. Grief, the death of a loved one, terminal illness, sexual assault, domestic abuse of a child and spouse, drug and alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts, depression, miscarriage, fatphobia, and homophobia.

©2022 Settle Myer (P)2025 Settle Myer

A must-read

This was so good! I loved every minute of it. I listened to the audiobook and the dual performance felt like watching a movie, highly recommended!

Settle did a great job of weaving in the grief and struggles of each character in a way that was meaningful and realistic but didn’t overwhelm the reader (at least for me, I know these topics will impact readers differently depending on their own experiences and triggers —check the content warnings for sure).

I really enjoyed the plus size representation, Lana has embraced her body and I appreciated that it wasn’t a point of character development for her in the book. Of course, dating an actor her size did come up from external forces, but it wasn’t over the top or triggering (for me at least).

If you want a romance that deals with some heavier topics and has a rich, emotional story, this may be the book for you.

Love, Liquor, and Donuts....or how I enjoyed this

I loved listening to this, and look forward to diving into the second book. It was wonderful listening to the dynamics between Mylan, Lana, and other characters.

It’s never too late to heal, find love and live again… even with someone you least expect it to happen with…

Amazing! Loved this story and all the characters. Lana is a beautiful plus size bar owner with a tragic love story who meets Mylan a gorgeous actor, with his our dark and tragic story, who happens to be 15 years younger than her. But he happens to also be playing the part of her deceased fiancé in the movie of his life, love story with Lana and his death. What can Lana do but grieve all over again but can she finally put it behind her and live and love again … even with a younger hot man.. and maybe help him in the process with his own demons? Settle Meyer this book had me laughing out loud, crying, smiling ear to ear, at times blushing, and it kept me on my toes to not accidentally hear this book with out my earbuds🤣🫣😅🥵 Loved all the representation in this book, writing style, and story. This was my first audiobook and won’t be my last. The voice actors were great! Can wait to read another book by you! Thank you for all the lessons also learned while reading this book.

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Well Done

This audiobook was fantastic. I enjoyed every minute of it. Duet and full cast production audios are just my favorite. It really brings the story to life, and I truly feel that the narrators did just that. I got a chance to watch an interview with the author and she talked about how this is the first audiobook that the two narrators did and wow. They are so amazing and I hope that she continues to work with them. They bought such life to this beautifully well written love story. This beautiful love story includes a lot of heavy topics, and I think that the narrators handle the grief, addiction, and pain so well. I do not generally like to read contemporary romance that has such a heavy topic, I tend to shy away from them, but being that this book was chosen for a book club inevitably I would have to read this book. But once I heard the audiobook in the sample, I got really excited and I got to say I think the audiobook made this book so much easier to digest and to really deal with just those heavy topics. This book beautifully written, and I look so forward to more books from this author, and I look forward to listening to more of her audiobooks if she publishes it.

fun heart warming

loved it, se** story, sassy,good read. would read again and would more form this author.