2.5 stars

This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com.

What’s that, you say? Two beach-themed books in a row? Anyone would think that I’m a sad little Melburnian rugged up in multiple layers and chasing down my husband so that I can put my cold feet on him.

Beach Season landed on my desk on Friday, and thanks to that oh-so-sunny cover illustration, I pounced on it right away. Surely reading about a warm climate can be an effective (and cheap) form of heating? After all, there’s a reason I obsessively seek out books about Maine, Alaska and Siberia during winter.
Unfortunately, Beach Season does not involve warm beaches and sunbathing, but if you count romance as a way to get your personal fires going, well, this collection has it in spades. The volume comprises four “second chance” novella-length romances that have less to do with sunshine and warm days than they do with the warmth that comes with finding love where it’s least expected.

Cathy Lamb’s June’s Lace gives us June McKenzie, hippie chick turned lawyer turned wedding dress designer whose failed marriage continues to haunt her–largely because her ex, a lawyer himself, is making the divorce process as difficult and expensive as possible. June is doing her best to keep things civil, and spends her days focused on building her alternative bridal gown business and turning her back on all things related to the male species. Until, one day, whilst walking along the beach, June is swept off her feet. Quite literally. Fortunately, country-and-western songwriter Reece is around to pull her to safety–but his interest in June isn’t just in her short term safety. June, however, is unwilling to become embroiled in another relationship when the ink on her divorce papers still hasn’t been signed, and when her ex refuses to see that things are over.

June’s Lace is a sweet and generally satisfying read full of quirky characters and heart-and-soul song lyrics, but though I loved June’s hippie background, I disliked the way that her backstory was infodumped into the narrative through a series of long speeches. I also found the final “confrontation” scene with June’s ex over the top, and struggled to believe the insta-romance between June and Reece.

June’s Lace is followed by Holly Chamberlain’s Second Chance Sweethearts, a novella that is in many ways similar to the one that precedes it, and I’m surprised that the two weren’t spaced out, as I think the book suffers from having two such stories following immediately after the other. In Second Chance Sweethearts we meet Thea Foss, a teacher on the run from an ex husband who’s proved himself to be a charlatan and a swindler. Broke and down on her luck, Thea seeks refuge in a small town, where she rents a modest flat owned by a wise spinster cat lady (you know the type), and takes a job waiting tables. Things only get better when she bumps into her childhood sweetheart Hugh, and the two begin to slowly rekindle a relationship that was stymied in its early stages by protective parents and a class divide. But Thea’s new-found happiness is short-lived when her husband tracks her down–and proves that he’s not prepared to leave without a fight.

If I’d read Second Chance Sweethearts as a standalone, I probably would have been more impressed by it, but I think that it suffers from its position in the collection. Though I enjoyed Thea’s character, her friendship with sweet cat lady Alice, and the gentle relationship with Hugh, the husband-as-bad-guy element that so resembles that in June’s Lace feels repetitive and tired. Not to mention that I found myself wondering why on earth so many women are apparently willing to marry men who are clearly domineering, swindling creeps. Although it’s good to see these characters making better choices the second time around, it becomes frustrating to read about and sympathise with characters who have been so easily sucked into unhealthy situations.

The third story in the volume, Rosalind Noonan’s Carolina Summer, takes a slightly different tack, but like the two novellas before it, begins with a woman on the run (and also, where’s the warm weather in this so-called beachy volume? I’m three stories in by this point, and still feeling cold). Jane Doyle, however, isn’t escaping a relationship gone bad, but rather, is fleeing from a hit-man hired by a mafioso who wants to prevent Jane testifying about a murder she’s witnessed. New York’s finest, apparently, have little interest in keeping her safe, so she’s off in search of safer shores. Soon enough, Jane finds herself in a small beach-side town where she picks up a cash-in-hand cleaning job and manages to find a place to stay while she hides out. Jane’s luck, it seems, is about to take a turn for the better–th
e place she’s renting belongs to the local sheriff. And the local sheriff is keeping a very close eye on Jane.
Although I enjoyed the tension between Jane and Sheriff Cooper, I have to say that the rest of this story was a bit of a head-scratcher. There are so many elements that don’t seem to work and that invite questions. Jane goes on the run with only a few hundred bucks in her wallet as she doesn’t want to leave a trail, but then says nothing when her brother offers to wire her money. How would she access said money without using a card or using electronic means that would alert her stalker of her presence? And if she’s a witness in a gangland murder, why isn’t the NYPD keeping her safe? Why don’t they do anything when things get so bad that she has to flee the city? All of this, combined with the bizarrely over-the-top final confrontation, which ends with the gunman basically just wandering away, had me feeling a bit bamboozled.

The final story in the collection is Lisa Jackon’s The Brass Ring, a “second chance” story that’s very different in tone from the others. It’s a story of jilted brides, car crashes, amnesia, and fake paternity claims, and it’s so unlikely that it’s kind of brilliant, even if it does use far too many exclamation marks for its own good. It’s sort of like reading a novelisation of an episode of Passions. Shawna is blissfully in love with her fiance Parker, and is counting down the minutes until they’re married at last (by “at last”, I mean after a few months of meeting). But when Parker doesn’t show up to the wedding (an event foreshadowed by a fairground fortune teller), Shawna knows that something must be terribly wrong. And it is. Parker’s been involved in a car crash, and has lost his memory–or at least the few months of it that involve Shawna. Shawna, however, is intent on helping her fiance make a full recovery, even if it means that he has to learn to love her all over again. But then a pregnant teenager arrives on the scene claiming that Parker is the father of her baby. And though Parker’s memory is fragmented, he recognises the girl…

This one has a big-haired, 80s vibe to it, and it’s full of scenes involving Shawna, who’s also a doctor, kneeling at Parker’s bedside, and muscling in on his space in her determination to protect him. Even when Parker’s accused of infidelity, she just grits her teeth and gets on with helping him learn how to walk again. And yes, this is a man she’s only known a few months. (What is it with romance novels and these whirlwind marriages?) I did appreciate that The Brass Ring has a very different style from the others in the volume, and avid readers of traditional romances will probably appreciate the love-against-all-odds approach of this one. But to be honest, I found it difficult to connect with Shawna and her forceful approach to thrusting Parker back into his life–surely as a medical practitioner, she would be mindful of the fact that Parker has suffered serious injuries and that his rehabilitation should be an ongoing process? I’d be a little afraid of Shawna if I were Parker.

Overall, Beach Season offers a good few hours of diverting romance reading, but readers currently suffering through winter like I am should know that there’s a notable absence of warm beaches and sunshine. Moreover, though the book’s cover indicates that it’s a volume of mainstream or women’s fiction stories, it’s traditional romance through-and-through. With the exception of Lisa Jackson’s, the stories are all very similar in nature, and I’d recommend spacing out your reading of this one rather than reading straight through.