Lisa Moreau

This is the story of Gabby and Olive. They're both photgraphers who have entered the Catalina contest where the grand prize is to become a travel photographer for a magazine that Olive loves. Olive does posed photography for a boss that's not quite a nice guy on the island and has a big secret that keeps her on the island. While Gabby is the general manager of a bunch of pizza stores on the mainland whose whole life has seemed to be predetermined and photography wasn't in that predetermination.

This one is a hard one. It wasn't a bad book, the writing, the plot, the narrative in general I thought was really good. It was the characters that tripped me up. At the beginning I did not like either of them at all. Gabby was an egocentric bitch, and Olive was a follower to the nth degree. That's fine, the problem was that I also thought that by the end of the story Gabby stayed the same, and while I sorta at least understood where Olive was coming from, she still seemed to me like a limp character.

I don't know. Most people seemed to like the book more than I do, so perhaps I was missing something really big that should have changed my point of view or something? But I guess that I just could never get into the book because I never really found myself rooting for the characters in any way.

I was given this ARC by Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.… (mehr)

I really liked this book. Yes most of it was predictable but what I focused on was how Moreau handled the relationship between the characters. One of the characters was disowned by her father and stepmother due to her sexual identity which left her with some long lasting self esteem issues that negatively impacted her love life. The other main character did not come term with her sexual identity until she lost the first girl she ever loved. In each case the author used them to show the different ways people will choose to react to a sexual identity different from their own and the consequences that will follow both positive and negative. It was a fast and easy read, very lighthearted. I thought the author has a beautiful sense of flow so you can start reading without wanting to stop. The sex was written with taste and beauty, definitely romantic. It's not overly memorable but it was a nice way to spend a few hours.… (mehr)