Julie Garwood- Dutton
Adult
The Facts: 368 pages - hardcover
or 10 hour audio book. (1 LOOONG car ride to the mother-in-law’s. My dear
husband also listened along.)
Summary
from Goodreads: Peyton
Lockhart and her sisters have inherited Bishop's Cove, a small, luxurious
oceanfront resort, but it comes with a condition: The girls must run the resort
for one year and show a profit - only then will they own it. A graduate of a
prestigious French culinary school, Peyton has just lost her job as a food
critic. Out of work and in a bad place personally, a year doing something
completely different sounds wonderful. There are countless challenges and too
many people who want to stop the sisters from succeeding. Among them are
Peyton's contentious cousins, who are outraged that they didn't inherit the
resort, as well as a powerful group of land developers who have been eyeing the
coveted beachfront property. It's soon apparent to Peyton that their efforts
are being sabotaged, but she refuses to let the threats scare her - until she's
nearly killed. She calls on her childhood friend and protector, Finn MacBain,
now with the FBI, and asks for his help. He saved her life once; he can do it
again. Julie's previous two titles, The Ideal Man and Sweet Talk, both debuted
at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list.
My Review: I am extremely unimpressed with Julie Garwood's newest addition. I used to be a HUGE fan of hers, and her historical novels always work as the perfect pick me up. However this novel lacks everything that makes a Julie Garwood novel great. In fact, her fans will be left wondering if this book was even written by her.
This book features cliche upon cliche, perfect characters
meeting perfect characters, and highly unbelievable situations. We start with
the swimmer who catches up with his innocent (ahem. VERY innocent) childhood
neighbor. Or, should I say Olympic gold medalist? No? How about Record-Breaking
Gold medalist. Not enough? He’s also turned into the PERFECT FBI agent who just
happens to save the day from crazy men with guns like it is nothing, and who
just happens to fall in love becoming the super protector to the one whom he
saved once before.
How "perfect" can one character be? As I’ve said
before, this book read like an amateur novel, and not Julie Garwood.
Fans of Julie Garwood would recognize she always features a
female character who runs, and has freckles. (Green eyes are also common.) None
of these are present in this novel.
Beyond the SUPER PERFECT characters, we have the
unbelievable situations that seem to be written in the book just to add as
filler. These situations do nothing but show off the perfectness of the
characters. (OMG! The entire bar recognizes the FBI agent because he stopped a
man with a gun! Oh look, he gets to stop a bar fight! MUSCLES!)
Usually I would go more in depth as to why this book fell
short, but doing so would just make me even more suspicious of the true author.
Save your money, save your time. Don’t read this book. If you want a romance,
read her FIRST books in the Buchanan series, or stick with her historical
novels. Once upon a time I would say “You can’t go wrong with a Julie Garwood
novel.” Unfortunately that is no longer the case.
Dear Julie: Please re-read your novels from the 80's and
help us to fall in love with you again.
My
Rating: 2
stars. I really REALLY wanted to like this book. I own all of Julie Garwood’s
novels, but this was something I just couldn’t and cannot recommend to anyone.
Hopefully this is NOT the book that introduces someone to the romance genre- as
it is a fail.
Jenni