The Sweetest Summer
A Bayberry Island Novel
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A practical-minded police chief and his first love get a second chance at romance in this novel in the Bayberry Island series.
Every instinct told Police Chief Clancy Flynn that his island’s claim to fame was nothing but a silly tourist attraction. But now and then, he couldn’t help but wonder if his lifetime of bad romances—starting with the pretty tourist who broke his fourteen-year-old heart—could be traced back to a childhood prank involving a mermaid statue...
Then one day the pretty tourist comes barreling back into Bayberry—all grown-up and on the run with her niece. Though Evelyn McGuinness is wanted for kidnapping, she tries to persuade Clancy that there’s more to the story. Now the by-the-book police chief must make the toughest decision of his life: to take Evelyn into custody—or into his arms...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Donovan (Sea of Love) opens this ostensible romance with a most unromantic prologue of obscenity-laced, macho dialogue among adolescent boys. The most profane and contemptuous of the lot grows up to be 32-year-old Clancy Flynn, a divorc and a coward. Oh, and the chief of police, because this is a romantic thriller, with a child in peril, a slimy federal politician, and more than a few laws broken many of them by the heroine, Evelyn McGuinness, who crosses state lines to abduct her orphaned niece. Once past the decidedly off-putting entr'acte, Donovan lays down a plot that entertains, but it's staffed by characters who clearly exist to fill a genre slot or set up a few gags. The obvious puppet strings prevent strong reader identification with the story's imbroglios, situational or emotional. The success of the story hinges on flashbacks to 14-year-old Clancy falling in love with Evie the first time, and the awkward, raw underage sexuality will make some readers squirm and others sigh.
