Romance-Suspense?
As I posted earlier, I didn't find much satisfaction in most of my trashy beach reads during vacation. But there was one that approached what I'd call an actual book. Mercy, by Julie Garwood, has a few different threads in the plot other than the developing relationship between the two primary characters.
Here's the skinny - Theo (a young widower) is a federal prosecutor. In New Orleans at a fancy banquet, he starts to feel sick and promptly throws up on Michelle, a beautiful young surgeon. Michelle takes him to the hospital, where she performs an emergency appendectomy. After some brief conversation upon his awakening, she departs for tiny Bowen, Louisiana, where she's from. See, Michelle is planning to leave the hospital and set up a little clinic in under-served Bowen so she can be close to her family and her home. When her father stops by the hospital to pick up some equipment being donated to the clinic, he and Theo have a little conversation about fishing, and an invitation to come fish in Bowen sometime is extended to Theo. You can see where this is going . . .
Storyline number two - Four friends who met in preparatory school have formed what they call "The Sowing Club," a secret alliance to procure ill-gotten gains. Dispersed in the banking, police, legal, and performance industries, the four friends are uniquely positioned to make mischief sucessfully, and they have squirrelled away millions of dollars. The friends have a pact that they will not touch the money until their 40th birthdays (still five years away at the novel's inception), when they will all cash out and go their separate ways. But something goes wrong with the club's plans, setting the two groups of characters (and their stories) on a collision course.
Ok, there are definitely some cheesy/sappy parts of this novel, but what made it worth reading was the HILARIOUS cast of characters that Garwood used to populate little Bowen, Louisiana. I laughed out loud - OUT LOUD, I tell you! - reading some of their conversations. Funny, funny stuff. Plus, it was romance, suspense, with some nice human interest thrown in for good measure.
So, if you're looking for an easy beach read that will neither tax your mind nor offend it, I can reccommend this novel. Before I head out to the seashore again, I will pick up something from this author.
Here's the skinny - Theo (a young widower) is a federal prosecutor. In New Orleans at a fancy banquet, he starts to feel sick and promptly throws up on Michelle, a beautiful young surgeon. Michelle takes him to the hospital, where she performs an emergency appendectomy. After some brief conversation upon his awakening, she departs for tiny Bowen, Louisiana, where she's from. See, Michelle is planning to leave the hospital and set up a little clinic in under-served Bowen so she can be close to her family and her home. When her father stops by the hospital to pick up some equipment being donated to the clinic, he and Theo have a little conversation about fishing, and an invitation to come fish in Bowen sometime is extended to Theo. You can see where this is going . . .
Storyline number two - Four friends who met in preparatory school have formed what they call "The Sowing Club," a secret alliance to procure ill-gotten gains. Dispersed in the banking, police, legal, and performance industries, the four friends are uniquely positioned to make mischief sucessfully, and they have squirrelled away millions of dollars. The friends have a pact that they will not touch the money until their 40th birthdays (still five years away at the novel's inception), when they will all cash out and go their separate ways. But something goes wrong with the club's plans, setting the two groups of characters (and their stories) on a collision course.
Ok, there are definitely some cheesy/sappy parts of this novel, but what made it worth reading was the HILARIOUS cast of characters that Garwood used to populate little Bowen, Louisiana. I laughed out loud - OUT LOUD, I tell you! - reading some of their conversations. Funny, funny stuff. Plus, it was romance, suspense, with some nice human interest thrown in for good measure.
So, if you're looking for an easy beach read that will neither tax your mind nor offend it, I can reccommend this novel. Before I head out to the seashore again, I will pick up something from this author.
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