31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and funny romance, September 28, 2010
This review is from: Simply Irresistible (A Lucky Harbor Novel) (Mass Market Paperback)
How is it I can love an author this much? I generally don't like books like this - romantic stories with a lot of humour. The characters almost always come off as juvenile and embarrassing. Jill Shalvis has a special talent - she knows how to give her humour depth, and her characters depth. I feel like I've been waiting for this new series forever - and it's going to be quite a wait before book two comes out. But don't worry about it fitting into a series; Jill Shalvis always makes sure her stories can hold up on their own.
In almost anybody else's hands, this book would not have been remotely fun. The heroine - Maddie - has run away to rescue an inn on the Washington coast - an inn the mother she barely knew left to her and the two sisters she barely knows upon her death. Not only that, but the poor woman has been fired from her fancy Hollywood job for dumping her abusive boyfriend - even though she still literally has the wounds to show the abuse was real. She's known as `The Mouse'. She's in a really bad place, and when she first kisses the hero - Jax - he lifts his hand and she's so convinced he's going to hit her she flinches away from him. It really doesn't sound like there can be any fun in this story, but it's the humour that makes this so special. That's not to say Maddie's problems aren't handled well; there were many times where I felt really sad for Maddie, and fell a bit in love with Jax for `getting' her straight away and knowing what he had to do to get through to her.
"She's drunk dialling contractors," Chloe said to Tara. "Someone should stop her."
She shifted against him, then sucked in a breath when his hammer jabbed into her hip.
"Sorry," he said. "Let me drop the belt-"
"No." She held on when he would have pulled away. "Don't. I like it."
Again, he lifted her face, and he smiled. "The tool belt turns you on."
"No." She closed her eyes and thunked her forehead to his chest. "Little bit."
Where there was only one bed.
At least it was a queen-sized, and it'd been cold enough that they hadn't minded being packed in like a litter of kittens. Well, they minded Chloe talking in her sleep, because it was usually things like "harder, Zach, harder," which both Tara and Maddie could do without hearing.
Shalvis knows how to hook her readers and reel them in by releasing information on a `need to know' basis. She never has information dumps; we learn about people's appearances when we need to know about them, and we get the characters' backgrounds as the story unfolds. I really liked that we didn't learn everything about the motivations for Maddie's move until forty or fifty pages in. We'd had time to get to know her before jumping into her emotional issues.
"If I looked like him," Tara said. "I'd want to have sex with myself. All the time."
Jill Shalvis understands people. All of her characters are real people. That's exactly why I like her writing. They all have stupid little quirks - Jax needs reading glasses, but he's too embarrassed to get them; Maddie makes a GIGANTIC fool of herself the first few times she encounters the hero.
Take for example, how they meet. Maddie nearly hits him with her car, and then nearly destroys his motorbike a few hours later. But Jax recognises there's a lot more going on with her, and his response is to drag her into the pub for a drink, where's he's very badly embarrassed by his best friend.
Maddie starts knitting compulsively to deal with the stress of her sisters' constant fighting, and Jax is nice enough to wear his ugly, crooked scarf all around town.
With a sigh, she picked up her knitting instead of inhaling any more food and continued where she'd left off last night. "In, wrap around," she said to herself. "Pull out."
"You know." Chloe said, licking some batter off her thumb. "The way you knit always sounds a little dirty. I bet if you knitted in earshot of a guy, you'd get laid for sure."
If a book can make you sit there grinning while you read it, you know it's good. You also know it's good if you're someone who never cries, and yet you're just about doing that while you read. I'm still yet to find a Jill Shalvis story I didn't love, and I can't wait for the next book.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful New Lucky Harbor Contemporary Romance Series, September 28, 2010
This review is from: Simply Irresistible (A Lucky Harbor Novel) (Mass Market Paperback)
USA Today bestselling author, Jill Shalvis launches an utterly delightful new Lucky Harbor contemporary romance series for Grand Central Forever with SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE featuring three half sisters, who inherit a rundown seaside resort from their mother. Maddie Moore has left the hectic pace of Los Angeles, her ex-job in the movie industry and a bad relationship behind her for what she hopes is a "New beginning done right" in Lucky Harbor, Washington - home to 2,100 lucky people and 10,100 shellfish. She's recently inherited the Lucky Harbor Resort from her deceased free-spirit mother, Phoebe Traeger with her two half sisters, Tara and Chloe, whom she hasn't seen in five years. While driving the winding roads into Lucky Harbor, Maddie almost hits a hunky guy on a motorcycle and stops to see if he's okay. The hot biker is more than okay, in fact he's really fine with his rugged good looks but since Maddie has sworn off men she goes on her way. When Maddie arrives at the resort her sisters are already waiting for her and she's disappointed to find that the resort which includes a bed and breakfast inn, marina and owner's cottage is in such sad shape that it will take a lot of money and renovation to reopen. Maddie was desperately hoping to run the inn for her new job but first she'll have to convince her "Steel Magnolia" oldest sister, Tara and "Wild Child" youngest sister, Chloe. It's harder than expected since the three sisters, who all had different fathers, were not raised together by their mother and hardly know each other. They give Maddie a month to get the inn running again before they decide to sell it. Maddie ends up at the local bar that night and meets her hunky biker again, who introduces himself as Jax Cullen. Although sparks instantly ignite between them and Jax walks her home and kisses her goodnight, Maddie is determined to stay away from him. When she returns to the inn, she calls a local carpenter and leaves a message about renovating the resort and the next day Jax shows up as her carpenter! Although it appears Jax could be the ideal man for Maddie, their pasts could prove too difficult in the rocky road to love. SIMPLY IRRESTIBLE certainly lives up to its name with three terrific sisters finally getting to know each other in the quaint town of Lucky Harbor, WA. Add to that their mother, Phoebe's life lessons she's left on recipe cards for her daughters that proceed every chapter and you get a charming contemporary series that will endear itself to romance reader's hearts
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It was just o.k., February 27, 2011
Always looking for new authors, I thought I'd give this one a try, and downloaded it to my kindle. I couldn't call myself a writer by any means. And I'm certain, would I attempt to write a book, it wouldn't be half as good. That being said, I do read a lot, and I prefer facts and pieces of information to be more subtly inserted into the text. It felt very text-book "creative writing 101" in the way the story and characters developed throughout the pages. And while there was a definite interest level in the plot, I found it a bit predictable in places. The character development was alright, if a bit too idealized, or perhaps, not dealt with enough seriousness. For example, I struggled with the 'recovery' of Maddy from her bad relationship. Contrast Maddy with Klepas' Haven Travis in "Blue Eyed Devil" and one can see the difference in handling the subject matter. I found both Maddy's past and her present-self (reconciling with the past) completely unbelievable.
Either create characters with less base pasts so that the book can stay lighter and more fluffy or give me a good solid read with complex characters who are struggling to find themselves, and the story is more realistic. I like a good fluffy book where I can pretend everything is roses, we all wear size 4 clothes, and have hunky men waiting for us where ever we turn as much as the next gal. However, combining the sordid with the sweet was not a good decision in this particular story.
That said, there were decent moments. The dialogue was well-done, and definitely this author's strength. Had more pieces of information been revealed through the dialogue, I might have enjoyed this book more. There were a few moments that made me chuckle. The chemistry between the sisters was very well done, and completely believable. I found the story line to have promise enough I did finish the book, even during the moments I felt like abandoning it.
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