FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this
book. These are my honest thoughts.
One of the best lines (to me) was this gem: “Life shouldn’t be all about accruing money.” It was great to see characters making choices NOT based on money but rather on God’s direction for their lives. This was so refreshing!
The beach scenes were some of my favorites in this story. The view was declared to be amazing, but I wish it would have been described a little more so it could have come alive in my mind. The discussions on the beach and the romantic bits that took place there were heartfelt and entertaining.
The cover was completely gorgeous. The purple hues were beautiful and complementary, and I loved that Katherine’s sunglasses were highlighted! They played a big role in the story, so it was fun to see they made it to the cover as well. It was fun also to have the pair of seagulls flying in the background of the cover, considering they play such significant roles throughout the entire series. The only alteration I would make is to highlight the blackberries a bit more. They’re hard to see in the bushes at the bottom of the cover. But overall, this was a breezy, fun cover that piqued my interest.
Zach was a great character. I liked that he was mystified by the leading lady from the jump but then dug deeper until he got to know her at different levels. This was handled well with chivalry and respect, which made me feel right at home getting to know these two.
The older-couple romance angle was so sweet! I adored Stephanie and Frank so much and would love to see them pop back around in a future book.
The reunion was great and well written. I can’t say more than that without spoilers, but it was something special.
The coffee shop and chocolate making aspects of this story were delightful and detailed.
There were some things that bugged me about this book too. I’ll briefly touch on them now, but I’ll try to not bemoan the things too much, because this was a fun read overall.
1 | Charley.
Charley is this mysterious Mexican man who always knows too
much about everybody. There are no context clues for how he “discerned” the
information, so he clearly knows the details by magic of some sort. I’m not
sure if it’s supposed to be “divine” or magician or genie type magic, but it
drives me nuts every time because it’s completely unrealistic and makes me
think these books ought to be labeled as Magical Realism instead of
Contemporary Romance.
2 | Magical animals.
Floyd and Gladys (a pair of seagulls), a seal, and a dolphin
all acted unlike any of their real-life counterparts that I’ve ever seen. They
seemed to follow unspoken directives from Charley (who’s the one who named
them). These critters acted unnaturally to me, and they gave me the willies.
3 | Follow one’s heart.
Charley advised a character to follow their heart because it
had “never betrayed him.” This is poor advice, considering the Bible calls the
heart “more deceitful than anything else” (Jeremiah 17:9). Several characters
were stated to follow their hearts when making huge life decisions. I was
really disappointed that prayer and seeking God’s will only came into play on
one or two big decisions instead of the majority of the time, considering this
book is in the Christian Fiction genre.
4 | Actress in disguise.
The whole actress in disguise plot did not work for me at
all. In theory, it was great. I love that type of story, so I was really
looking forward to this one. In actual application, it wasn’t very well done here.
It was inconsistent throughout, sometimes claiming the lady wasn’t famous at
all (thus, would not be easily recognized), while other times she was a “rising
star” or on the verge of leaving the business altogether (indicating she’d
already had a full career). At one point very late in the story, she even
admitted “I’m not a household name.” That right there broke the entire actress
in disguise plot for me. If she wasn’t a household name, then nobody would have
recognized her whether or not she changed her hair color and wore dark
sunglasses. Another reason I didn’t believe she wouldn’t be recognized is
because in real life, actors and actresses are easily recognized with
sunglasses, baseball caps, different hair colors and styles, and without their
stage/screen makeup. If this make-believe actress was really half as famous as
she claimed, she would have definitely been recognized in today’s tech-heavy
society. One last thing about this actress thing. Nowhere through the entire
book had she even thought or mentioned that she was considering directing
rather than acting… yet, on page 292, she suddenly declared she was “getting
more interested in the directing side of the business.” That came as a complete
shock, because the whole time through the story, she’d been dragging her feet
about making a decision about her first A-list movie role. There had been no
previous hint at all about directing being an option.
5 | Awkward name drop.
It’s pretty common in Christian Fiction for authors to
name-drop their friends by including titles or names. I’m fairly used to this
now. What made this one extremely awkward to me was that Mrs. Hannon name
dropped herself: “She held up the new Irene Hannon suspense novel she was
reading.”
Overall, this was a cute read. Reality was suspended in a few places, but many readers will be able to better overlook those spots than I. The beachy-ness of the story was exactly what I wanted when I picked up this book, so on that front, I was definitely satisfied.
Content: replacement profanity, alcohol, sexual innuendo, tarot cards analogy, betting/wager analogies, drug abuse, crude sexual phrase, Catholicism
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