A sweet, second chance romance.
- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark; Original edition (June 1, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1402241445
- ISBN-13: 978-1402241444
Genre: Contemporary Romance
My rating: 4.0 of 5.0
Product Description
Phillipa Ashley is a bestselling author in the UK with over 50,000 copies sold and the kind of funny, accessible British voice that U.S. audiences love.
Jack Thornfield, new CEO, is shocked to see his long lost love, Beth Allen's resume come across his desk. After 8 years apart they have a second chance at happiness in this romantic story about love and secrets.
Review: An easy and solid romance read.
Beth Allen has experience in outdoor trekking and travel. She is determined to get a job as product manager for the specialist travel company, Big Outdoors. She needs the job to help with expenses for her family even though it will mean she has to live in London and visit home only on weekends. Beth isn’t quite sure how her somewhat pushy boyfriend, Marcus, will take her decision, especially considering he is in a position to help her family if she would accept his help, or, as he would prefer, marry him.
Beth has all of the right experience and drive for the job and her homework shows that the company needs her skills. But she gets a surprise set back when she walks in for the interview and comes face to face with her first love. It was 8 years ago when Beth was only 19 and she fell for her summer trek instructor, Jack. Theirs was a whirlwind romance and he even proposed. But suddenly he was called away and he never even called her again. She thought she’d gotten over the heartache until she had to face him and contemplate accepting a position where he would be her boss.
Jack had personal reasons that took him away from Beth but he never totally forgot her. He hadn’t expected to see her again and he can understand her distrust and unhappiness even if he doesn’t like it.
The job position is only for six months. Can Beth and Jack manage to work together professionally through that time? Can Jack possibly convince her to give them a second chance when she is nearly engaged to another man and it appears that Jack has a sexy companion? Can Beth overcome the pain of the past betrayal and take a chance on the attraction that still sizzles between them?
I enjoyed the plot premise and the fact that Beth had to work at focusing on her job and not allowing bitterness or lust to get the upper hand. The characters are nicely developed and the story moves along quickly. It was a surprise (not unpleasantly) that there was no sexual scene for two thirds of the book. That helped make it a sweet, light romance instead of a heavy one. This makes for a nice, fast summer read.
Three word description: easy, sweet, warm.
Thank you to Sourcebooks for this book to read and review.
The cover on the left is the ARC cover.
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