Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsPass the sunscreen and enjoy those last few days of Summer!
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2017
Summer is all too short here in my little corner of the world, and I’m always a little sad when Labor Day weekend rolls around. Hmm…how to extend that summertime feeling just a little longer? Why, Mary Kay Andrews, of course! MKA is the Queen of beachy-summer reads and I can always count on her to bring a little southern charm and sunshine into my life, regardless of the season.
This is the story of three women in their 30’s who have been best friends since childhood. Julia, Dorie and Ellis spend a “girls-only” month in the Outer Banks in a semi-dilapidated cottage owned by hunky Ty Bazemore. Everyone is at loose ends: Ellis has just lost her job (and a sizeable chunk of her identity), Dorie’s marriage is in crisis and Julia can’t commit to her long-time love. For his part Ty is in deep financial trouble and in imminent danger of losing the cottage to the bank. Add an enigmatic stranger that’s fleeing something – or someone – into the mix and you have the perfect recipe for a steamy August vacation at the beach.
This was a cute story, but lacked the southern charm of the author’s other novels set in Savannah or Charleston. I do have to say that reading this book brought back a lot of fun memories of long ago beach vacations spent in ramshackle cottages that became “home” for a few short weeks. While the writing itself is good, there's a bit of a soap opera quality to the storyline, with the characters all caught up in various personal melodramas. At nearly 500 pages this book felt a bit too long to me; there’s just not enough story here to fill all those pages and there were times when I felt like the book just ran out of steam. Still, it was a pleasant read and I could practically smell the Coppertone and feel the sand in my flip-flops, and that’s really what I was looking for. I waffled between a 3 or 4 star rating for this one, but overall I enjoyed it so 4 stars it is!
Occasional swearing/strong language and some brief adult content.
