About the Book:
"Nathan is terrible at relationships…
Just ask his absent father, his controlling aunt and uncle…or his ex-girlfriend, Sarah. All he wants is to spend the summer before his senior year relaxing in the sun without any conflict or drama. But when he lays eyes on the beautiful, married mother of three at the opening of a yacht club, all bets are off.
Jacqueline McCarthy’s life is nothing but a façade…
Her husband is a disgraced former athlete who prefers to have his ego stroked by other women. Jackie fills her empty days with yacht club events with other bored, wealthy housewives she can’t stand, and she’d give anything to truly connect with someone.
When she meets Nathan and asks him to watch her children, she is captivated by the handsome, charismatic young man with a swimmer’s body.
Jacqueline’s attraction to Nathan doesn’t go unnoticed and one particular vindictive gossip is determined to expose what she considers an unsavory secret.
Her campaign of rumors and innuendo—and eventually physical evidence—draws the attention of friends and strangers alike, and threatens to bring their world crashing down.
However, sometimes those who are quickest to judge are the last ones who should be throwing stones…"Review:
Description: The premise of this book struck us somewhere between the romance of a Nicholas Sparks novel and the intrigue of a guilty pleasure blockbuster. Starting off by the description of the book we were given, it accurately portrays the book's appeal and will immediately capture potential readers into purchasing this book; the old saying of "you can't judge a book by its cover", doesn't necessarily work well in the world of publishing where reviewers and publishers must get the most appealing description possible in order to accept further communications regarding the book. This cover description gives you that and more.
Plot: Here's where this book differs from a Nicholas Sparks novel, the author writes about a teenage boy in the prime of life that falls in love with an amazingly interesting woman. He wants to spend the entire summer surrounded by her grace and attention, the only problem is, his love affection is married, and this is where the book takes a wild turn and turns romance on its head with a new perspective.
Reading through the book, we too were captivated by Nathan, the young, fit, and handsome protagonist of this riveting novel; the author does a great job of describing the appeal of the young male physiques and personalities that drove all girls madly in love during those high school years. Nathan is the embodiment of this feeling, and as the author goes into detail about his chance meeting with Jacqueline, you can almost smell the prime pheromones coming through the pages.
What we find most appealing is the fact that Jacqueline seems to be trapped in a monotonous, unloving marriage with her husband, something many women can relate to. This aspect also makes delving into this guilty pleasure even better. Not only does it leave us rooting for the married mother's attempt at happiness, it also brings to light the dangers of extramarital affairs in the world of wealthy socialites. In between the engulfing narrative describing the relationship Jacqueline and Nathan embark on, come the murmurs and whispers of those in her circle and threaten to bring her escapade crumbling down to the ground.
The concept of accumulating evidence threatening to make fact of supposed rumors of this affair also kept us on the edge of our wits, always guessing who would be the culprit responsible for setting the atomic bomb and how they'd do it.
Nathan's relationship with Sarah, his ex girlfriend, is perfectly described to the reader beginning on Page 1, which gives us an exact reason for why Nathan would find satisfaction in someone like Jacqueline, rather that the spoiled high-maintenance entity that is Sarah. From the very beginning the author sets the circumstances behind this unraveling love tale, using wit and captivating descriptions along the way.
Our favorite quote from page 1:
"Nathan found himself constantly scrambling to prevent debauchery from turning into catastrophe. (In reference to one of Sarah's parties that he attended)" This sentence helps us understand Nathan's role in Sarah's life, always fixing her messes and being expected to play God with her emotions to save her from her own self inflicted pain.
Quality: The author's overall storyline is great and his use of descriptive sentences are as well. However, he tends to break paragraphs prematurely and give too much of an internal back story when it comes to the character's thought process (why he does or doesn't do things, what he's thinking about and why). These are not that prevalent, so, we were okay overlooking it.
In exchange, we get a better understanding of these characters, where some descriptions are not needed as mentioned above, others compliment the dialog and progress well. For example, in chapter 18 he writes:
"He decided against a museum because there were too many variables. What if Jackie didn’t like art? What if she knew more about it than he did? What if he sounded pretentious? What if he talked too much? He had returned to overanalyzing, but in this case it served to protect him from making a potentially poor decision."This level of character thinking gives us a deeper understanding of Nathan's feelings for Jackie and his personality. He's smitten, with that the author gives us all of the sweet and savory things Nathan does, wants to do, and thinks of when it comes to his mature woman, which teeters him on the line between being a teen and functioning like a man; which when it comes to love, the line can get quiet blurred any age.
On the court of mistakes, errors, and composition, the book has few things that would be deemed unacceptable. The only minor dislikes we encountered were the descriptive methods mentioned above. These were few and far between. Other than that, we're giving it a high rating.
Buy the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Half.com | IndieBound | Abebooks
Contact the Author
Ian Thomas Malone
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