Hot Shot

Julie Garwood- Dutton Adult

 

The Facts: 368 pages - hardcover or 10 hour audio book. (1 LOOONG car ride to the mother-in-law’s. My dear husband also listened along.)

Summary from Goodreads: Peyton Lockhart and her sisters have inherited Bishop's Cove, a small, luxurious oceanfront resort, but it comes with a condition: The girls must run the resort for one year and show a profit - only then will they own it. A graduate of a prestigious French culinary school, Peyton has just lost her job as a food critic. Out of work and in a bad place personally, a year doing something completely different sounds wonderful. There are countless challenges and too many people who want to stop the sisters from succeeding. Among them are Peyton's contentious cousins, who are outraged that they didn't inherit the resort, as well as a powerful group of land developers who have been eyeing the coveted beachfront property. It's soon apparent to Peyton that their efforts are being sabotaged, but she refuses to let the threats scare her - until she's nearly killed. She calls on her childhood friend and protector, Finn MacBain, now with the FBI, and asks for his help. He saved her life once; he can do it again. Julie's previous two titles, The Ideal Man and Sweet Talk, both debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list.

My Review: I am extremely unimpressed with Julie Garwood's newest addition. I used to be a HUGE fan of hers, and her historical novels always work as the perfect pick me up. However this novel lacks everything that makes a Julie Garwood novel great. In fact, her fans will be left wondering if this book was even written by her.

This book features cliche upon cliche, perfect characters meeting perfect characters, and highly unbelievable situations. We start with the swimmer who catches up with his innocent (ahem. VERY innocent) childhood neighbor. Or, should I say Olympic gold medalist? No? How about Record-Breaking Gold medalist. Not enough? He’s also turned into the PERFECT FBI agent who just happens to save the day from crazy men with guns like it is nothing, and who just happens to fall in love becoming the super protector to the one whom he saved once before.

How "perfect" can one character be? As I’ve said before, this book read like an amateur novel, and not Julie Garwood.

Fans of Julie Garwood would recognize she always features a female character who runs, and has freckles. (Green eyes are also common.) None of these are present in this novel.

Beyond the SUPER PERFECT characters, we have the unbelievable situations that seem to be written in the book just to add as filler. These situations do nothing but show off the perfectness of the characters. (OMG! The entire bar recognizes the FBI agent because he stopped a man with a gun! Oh look, he gets to stop a bar fight! MUSCLES!)

Usually I would go more in depth as to why this book fell short, but doing so would just make me even more suspicious of the true author. Save your money, save your time. Don’t read this book. If you want a romance, read her FIRST books in the Buchanan series, or stick with her historical novels. Once upon a time I would say “You can’t go wrong with a Julie Garwood novel.” Unfortunately that is no longer the case.

Dear Julie: Please re-read your novels from the 80's and help us to fall in love with you again.

My Rating: 2 stars. I really REALLY wanted to like this book. I own all of Julie Garwood’s novels, but this was something I just couldn’t and cannot recommend to anyone. Hopefully this is NOT the book that introduces someone to the romance genre- as it is a fail.

Jenni