I'm sorry to say that I struggled to finish this book. I almost gave up a few times, but I hate to do that so I plodded through, but skimmed quite a bit.

It started out okay, but based on the multiple POVs in the beginning I wasn't sure which were the important players. That first threw me off a little bit and prevented me from becoming invested in any of the characters.

After that there was some serious info-dumping about nautical equipment and then a little later about the history of Key West. It read like a textbook at times.

And then, of course, about 50% of the book relies on my least favorite trope of all - the constant misunderstanding. The hero thinks one thing, the heroine another and they literally NEVER talk to each other. They would fight and then he would leave and misunderstanding would pile on top of misunderstanding. Half the time it felt like poor character development and the other half just felt contrived. Oh, and what self-respecting woman allows a man to end a fight just by kissing her? Abby would be all worked up and angry with him and then he would kiss her, and poof! fight over, everything is hunky-dory again. I hate that. Some people like this kind of plot device so they may enjoy this, but I find it irritating.

The ending started to improve a little bit as they was some drama, but then I was thrown off again when part of the conclusion was written like a moral. Rather than being shown how the hero finally had this big revelation and had grown as a character, I felt that I was being taught a lesson. If the point of the book was to teach a lesson, fine, but this was the only part written like that and so it just didn't jive with the rest of the book. ( )