3.5 StarsFrom pagetrotter.blogspot.com
Some of my favorite stories are about couples that have known each other for a long time. It gives the characters that extra level of closeness and makes that transition from friend to lover that much sweeter. It's the same for this book too. Chloe's been in love with Cameron forever and Cameron knew it, but didn't realize that he didn't hate that until he comes home for the summer and saw how much little Chloe has grown. Commence the attraction!
It was a very sweet book, but also had a bit of gritty-ness between what happened to Cameron "off camera" with his job and what happens to Chloe fairly early in the book. Then comes the relationships both of the main characters have with all the McKenzie siblings. It's not as heavy has some contemporary romances out there, but it has layers that gives it a little depth.
This is my first Karen Erickson book, BUT I have read her books under her penname Monica Murphy (LOVE her) and I can see how similarities with the great handle she has with dialogue. I'm a fan of that for sure, the more realistic the more believable the characters are to me. This is why I comment on the dialogue in every review.
Now why did I give it 3.5 stars? Believe me I didn't want to. I hated it, I felt like I was slapping a friend BUT I have to stay true to you guys. I didn't like Chloe. She had these very brief moments are "I am woman, hear me roar!" and then they were gone along with her backbone. I hated it. I felt like she let Cameron walk all over her for the majority of the book (this changes at the end) and it left a bad taste in my mouth. They work in out in the end, but I just felt like Cameron was a jerk and Chloe was weak. I did like the whole idea of summer adventures. Also most of the sex was fade to black, just a heads up to all my smut sistah's. Also, the accident. I felt that Cam took advantage of the memory loss when I would have respected him so much more if he came clean and was like "this horrible convo happened when I was an uber dick, but I'm sorry. I was just pushing you away because you were a threat to my heart and I didn't want to hurt yours beyond repair, blah, blah, blah" Yeah, I would have respected him a whole hell of a lot more. Oh well. There was just something about this one, I can't put my finger on it, but I just didn't connect with it.
Would I recommend it? If you're looking for a sweet, airy read then sure thing! Because it was sweet, I just prefer a little more angst and my heroines to be bad ass bitches. ARC received in exchange for an honest review.
