Publication date: May 2020
Review, short version: One skunk out of four.
Review, long version:
There are authors I’ve read and enjoyed for a long time. Authors who, when I learned they had a new book – I bought it. I didn’t read the summary or reviews.
When they wrote it, I wanted it.
Those authors include Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Tami Hoag and Susan Howatch.
Sadly, over the years, with each author I’d I realize, “Well, I’m not going to buy her books anymore.”
If my library had it, I’d read it. But spend $20 to $30 for on an author I was now iffy about?
The next step – again, sadly – was, “I’m not going to read her books anymore.”
With each of those four authors, I transitioned from “buying” to “not buying” to “not reading.”
Sometimes it was because the author’s focus had changed. Sometimes, my tastes changed. And sometimes, I guess I just lost that lovin’ feeling.
Over time, Barbara Delinsky’s books have moved from “buy it” to “not buy it,” so I got her latest, A Week at the Shore, from my library.
I’m not quite ready to move Delinsky from “not buy” to “not read,” but I’m getting there.
A Week at the Shore is not bad, it’s just…not very good.
There’s nothing new or original about it.
And it’s full of clichés, including:
The book was so cliché-ridden that I fully expected a hurricane to sweep in and tumble one or both houses into the ocean. You know – one of those 100-year storms that just happens to occur in the final 20 pages?
The storm then – of course – exposing the skeletal remains of the wife who deserted. Or died.
At least I was spared those clichés.
And perhaps I’ve spared you from reading A Week at the Shore.
I guess it was my turn to…
I Hate Houseguests 