Fresh Powder

by Susanne O'Leary

Lucy and Claire were once best friends but after a row, they haven't spoken in ten years. Imagine their shock when they are thrown together, not only in the same ski resort in the French Alps but in the same chalet.. Then they are snowed in, together with two attractive men and a couple with relationship issues, which puts both their friendship and their survival skills to the test

Genres: Romance, Chick Lit, Fiction, Contemporary, Contemporary Romance, Ebooks

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Susanne O’Leary is the bestselling author of more than 30 novels, mainly romantic fiction set in Ireland. Her many books set in County Kerry have been hugely popular with readers all over the world. She shares her time between Dublin and Kerry, where she and her husband have a little cottage near the beach. The wild, beautiful landscape, the small villages and the friendly people of that county have inspired her to write her feel-good stories. She's been inspired to represent people of all ages and walks of life, with lots of romance, and more than a dash of humour.

When she is not writing or reading by the fire, Susanne loves heading for the great outdoors, walking on the beaches or scaling the green hills of her favourite county.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I ever really clicked with this book. I think I just ended up not really liking any of the characters. Claire supposedly learns to love unselfishly as she takes care of her young charge, but most of the interactions we get to see of Claire and young Emilie is Claire being annoyed at her and threatening physical violence(not that Emilie isn't annoying...). I would have liked to see this relationship explored a bit more. I would have also liked to see more development of the friendship between Claire and Lucy. Although I started out liking both of them, their lack of interactions except for very brief times together made me feel less invested in whether or not they made up and became friends again.

The writing style was good and flowed well. I did continue to read because I wanted to know what happened next, and I appreciated that all of the characters were real human beings, and therefore flawed, but once I really got into the story, I didn't really care about them as people. I wanted to know what happened to them, but it was from a distance.

Technical notes: I read the epub version of this book purchased from Smashwords, and there were a lot of formatting issues with it. On almost every "page," some paragraphs would be in a larger font size and others would be smaller. Occasionally right before section breaks a paragraph would be centered rather than justified.

I also found quite a few typos/missing words/missing letters/extra spaces that were a bit distracting at times. There were also some words that I'm not sure if they were completely misspelled or if they were just differences between US and UK English.

[Kelsey Baitinger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Needs an editor

This book was so frustrating to read as error after error showed up. It does not seem as if anybody did any editing before publishing. The story wasn't great either. It jumped around a lot. There were parts too drawn out, and then the ending came quickly. I do not recommend it.

[Aimee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had some free time and this was partially read on my kindle so I figured, eh, let’s finish it up and see if it’s any good.

Not my cuppa tea. I couldn’t relate to any of the characters (who seemed to change personalities every now and then?) and I just could not get into the story at all. Truth be told, I kind of skimmed through the book at lightning speed because I just wanted to finish it and see if anything interesting would happen. I don’t even know why? It’s like I was just on a mission to complete something. Probably because in this time of my life so many things are uncertain and up in the air I wanted to have one thing I could say “hey! At least I finished this!” Lol!!

[Zee Monodee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The many character POVs reminded me a lot of a Jill Mansell story - with everyone in the tale telling the reader a bit of what's going on. It hops all over, but in a way, that's what makes the charm of this tale. I could overlook the typos while reading, so those didn't bother me.

[Jet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very easy to read.
The thoughts of the protagonists are sometimes a bit stupid.

[jillian taft · Rating 4 out of 5]

How the others live!

Relationships in the snow. Personalities clash on a skiing holiday in a luxury chalet as the snow falls and forces them to face a few home truths.

[Carien · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my ongoing quest to find fun Contemporary Romances I came across this book and decided to give it a try.

It was not what I hoped it would be, but still a nice read. I will confess I disliked about half the characters in this book, but I kept reading because I wanted to see the characters I did like, get their happily ever after.

As this book is from 2006 and the author has written more books since, I will investigate some of the newer books to see if those are closer to what I'm looking for.

[Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having lived in Ireland for a year and before moving to Germany to live with my boyfriend, this book called to me. However, it was quite possibly one of the most disappointing reads I have come across in a while, and I had to stop reading it halfway through.

Considering the amount of romance novels I read on a monthly basis, that is pretty sad.

The number one issue with this book is the characters. Neither of the two leads are likable. The teacher, Claire, at first seems alright. But she flip flops between being a kind, loving grade-school teacher to being a bitch, sometimes within a paragraph. And even worse is the other lead, Claire's former best friend Lucy. Lucy went from being an uptight student to an uptight up-and-comer in an advertising agency in NYC.

A good example of Lucy's cruelty would be when Claire is trapped outside on a balcony (in the middle of the winter in the alps) without any clothes on (She had just been in a hot tub). And when she is found by the other members of the group she is near frozen. Despite this, Lucy takes it as Claire trying to steal the incredibly unlikable male-lead. Why does she think this? Because Claire was naked and clearly she stood outside in the cold to flash her titties at him.

Everything about this book just seems ridiculous to me, and while that can sometimes be charming in a romance novel, with these characters it is just gag-worthy. If this is the type of book being published these days in romance, I should start writing because even a horrible writer like me could come up with better characters than Susanne O'Leary. Because sadly, I don't care about Lucy or Claire, and the male-leads are nothing to appreciate either. There is no romance in this book.

[Rachel Cotterill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to be honest: there were several points where I almost put this book down, never to pick it up again. It was littered with typos (and I'm don't mean US/UK differences of opinion), and the first few pages the perspective yo-yos relentlessly between the two main characters without giving the reader time to get to know either of them. But the set-up was intriguing, and I decided to read on despite my reservations.

There are some things that Fresh Powder does really well. Most relationships in the novel are dysfunctional, but in a believable way, and there are plenty of vicious conflict, snarky exchanges, and tense moments. Add in some beautiful Alpine scenery with a constant threat of blizzards, avalanche, or other snow-related disasters, and it should be the perfect recipe for an entertaining romantic comedy.

However, I felt that this book never really delivered. The last few pages are filled with implausible-seeming events, and serious feuds are resolved much too easily with a lot of promises to "forgive and forget". I just didn't believe in it, and found myself somewhat wishing I'd stuck with my earlier instincts to abandon the whole thing after the first few pages.

[Michelle (MichelleBookAddict) · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars and read in June 2012.
This is a first author book I read. I really enjoyed it and I'm now looking into more works by Susanne. The story of the two close friends is both heartwarming and funny.

The two best friends storyline and the sky resort setting intrigued me the most. I loved Clare the most because I can relate to her care free attitude. Just wish that Patrick was more caring towards Clare. He was a bit self-centered in my opinion. He even reminded me of some of my exes. I liked Bernard but felt that he was more a backdrop character.

I think the best way to describe this book is it's drama. Penny Freeman's the queen of the melodramatic. I wasn't to interested in reading about Penny's point of view. This character puts all other Drama Queens to shame. She's even over dramatic about having menopause, acting like it was the end of the world.

I bout this back in May of 2012 and have read it twice now. It's a good chick lit story.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gym reading. I got this free or really cheap for the Kindle.

I liked this story okay. I was never super into any of the characters, but it was interesting enough that I kept reading. The punctuation was ATROCIOUS, making it a bit hard to read at times. I could also do with a good editor. I'm sure that Penny, an American, would never call her resume a CV. Some things took me out of it a bit and left me wondering at the usage. At one point, Emalie (sp?) wants some chips with dinner. Later on, someone else (I think Lucy) is described as eating french fries. I get that Emalie would say chips, but why are they then french fries when it's description? Maybe I'm picky? In the end, this was okay, but I didn't love it.

[Lorraine Stark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got this from the Kindle lending library to make sure my account was set up correctly and read it because I was bored. While the story was mildly entertaining, the plethora of typos and the fact that the author wrote the dialogue as though everyone was from Ireland, even though more than half where supposed to be from the US, made it a bit of a chore to read. No one from NY calls the elevator a "lift" or says "arse," and certainly no one who's supposed to be from Texas. Those little things made the predictable storyline even harder to swallow. Fine for a day's beach reading, but I certainly wouldn't have paid for it.

[Bridget Sphung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice story but I wouldn't classify it as a romance novel. It is a story about a group of people which mostly takes place during their two week stay in a chalet in the Alps. While some of the characters fall in love it is more about the relationships between the characters (which are all connected somehow). One of the relationships is a bit unrealistic in the end. All in all, while not a great story it was entertaining. A nice light read.

[Kathleen Crowell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kind of long and drawn out. Lucy was a cold fish throughout--never warmed up and the cliche ending is proof of that. I enjoyed Claire and would liked to have seen more interaction between her and Bernard. Penny and Al were interesting--Tiffany was not worth the extra pages. It wasn't horrible and the typos were not nearly as bad as they were made out to be--the story itself got in it's own way without them.

[Fionnuala M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This would be a lovely book to curl up with on a cold winters night. It deals with the trials and tribulations of two Irish girls who after parting company on bad terms some years earlier find themselves snowed in and trapped in a chalet whilst on a skiing holiday. Very entertaining and funny with lovely descriptions.

[Miranda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Talk about dysfunctional people. Everyone's lives were messed up, the description of the book was wrong. Says two friends stuck in a snow storm with two handsome men. Umm... I could see one but the other one didn't show til the end and was never there during a storm. I kept waiting and waiting but the book was quite disappointing. Glad it was free.

[Booklover · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, but I couldn't quite bring myself to round it up to 3. The story itself had promise, and the writing was OK, but I found it a somewhat unpleasant read. I didn't really like any of the characters, and the whole tone was bitter - the characters spend most of the book fighting and sniping at each other.

[Karrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Took me a while to get into the story. The story about Lucy and Claire who used to be close friends but had a big fall out.

When they come face to face in a chalet at the French Alpa.

It got more interesting when the group arrive at the chalet.

Annoyingly there were quite a few typo errors.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst book I ever read. Only reason I finished it is because I *have to* finish a book once I start it. Terrible characters, terrible writing, terrible attempt at American vernacular, no real plot, full of typos and misspellings, no story resolution, utter crap.

[Rainey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. really enjoyed the writing.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chick lit - fun story ideal to read over Xmas when there's poeple coming in and out all the time!

[Mel623 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read which I really enjoyed

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.. a bit redundant, but it was entertaining enough and a cheap e-book at that!

[Liz]

Didn't read very far. Too much profanity and not content I wanted to read about. It's free on Kindle, but not what I was hoping for.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book - a nice, quick, easy read

[Karen Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The typos in the book were irritating but the story itself was an interesting read. I enjoyed it.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lame! Too many women with too many issues. Not fun, not enlightening, just boring.

[A'lina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, I barely finished this one. I found it slow and boring, just couldn't get into it.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

delightful read

[Camille · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't love it but didn't hate it. Would have given it a three if not for the gross amount of clerical typos, which were distracting. It was a nice light read, one which I feel fairly neutral about.