Annabel Monaghan

Summer lovin', having a blast / Summer lovin', happened so fast... Sam's first love broke her heart. When they were teenagers, spending summers next door to each other in cottages on Long Island, Sam and Wyatt were inseparable. Especially those last few summers, when childhood friendship turned into young love. Now, fourteen years later, Sam doesn't even like to go to the family beach cottage, because it brings back too many hurtful memories of the way it ended between her and Wyatt. But now Jack, her fiancé, wants to go there to check out possible wedding venues, and Sam hopes that she can put her old ghosts to bed. What she doesn't expect is to find Wyatt, who left for California years ago, back in the house next door. Is Sam's carefully constructed safe existence about to crumble like a sandcastle?

Of course it is. This is a perfectly adequate romance, but there are no surprises here. Monaghan has written Jack as so blatantly unlikable that it's obvious that Sam's not going to end up with him, in the same way that it's obvious that Wyatt is not some washed-up surfer bum/gas station mechanic, as Sam's whole family seems happy to assume. (A quick Google search could have cleared up so much, but the reason given for not doing one was pretty flimsy.) The summer beach house setting is well-written, and the interactions between Sam and Wyatt are believable. Recommended for romance fans, but not very picky ones.… (altro)

I love this book on so many levels. Let's start from the beginning.

Nora lives in upstate New York with her two kiddos in a rundown yet quaint home with a formal tea house out back. Nora is a screenwriter and has sold her soul for the tried and true same-old romance films that have netted her enough money to get by. Nora's ex, a too-good-to-work kinda guy, left about a year ago, and Nora has just landed a deal with her latest screenplay about her life, in a fictionalized way, of course. And guess who's starring in it, the uber-famous, most handsome bachelor star, Leo Vance. Opposite Leo is the stunning Naomi.

The crew comes to Nora's house for filming, slated to last three days. During that time, Nora and her kids' lives are turned upside down by town gossips (nosey bodies), 18-wheelers on her lawn (cast and crew), and all things Hollywood. But the beautiful thing is that Leo has taken a shine to Nora's kids, and they to him. Upon wrapping up the show, Nora figures its all finished, until she walks out the next morning to find Leo asleep on her porch swing.

Leo turns out to be just a guy, an ultra-famous one, but just a guy nonetheless. He falls for the kids, helps out at the school play, signs autographs for the locals, and, surprise, falls in love with Nora. Then come the twists, the turns, the split, the get back together, the happy ever after.

But let's talk about what struck me here - Leo ghosts Nora for days that turn into weeks and months. Of course, in the book, there is a back story we don't learn until the end, and all works out. But if any of you have ever been ghosted… (altro)