Under the Boardwalk
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4.3 • 113 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Her twin sister is missing.
When Ariana Costas heard her twin sister, Zoe, had disappeared, Ari left Vermont and returned to her Jersey girl roots to find her. Ari didn’t know what to expect from her search, but danger around every corner, dodging bullets, and a hunk in a leather jacket saving her was not it.
He thought she was someone else.
Detective Quinn Donovan thought he located Zoe Costas. Beautiful, dark haired and a perfect match to the description he’d been given, he believes he has his lady. Except as it turns out, the gorgeous woman is Zoe’s twin Ariana, the college professor. Suddenly, Quinn’s job is more about trying to protect Ari who is in trouble deeper than the Atlantic at high tide. There’s more at stake than trying to protect her without spilling his well-guarded secrets.
Will he lose his heart and the girl in the process?
REISSUE
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ariana Costas, the heroine of Phillips's (The Heartbreaker, etc.) featherweight confection, is a Jersey girl with a wacky family who quickly gets caught up in some potentially dangerous hijinks. Sound familiar? Despite the parallels, Ariana is no Stephanie Plum. Rather, she's a confused, repressed psychology professor who feels like a misfit in her family of eccentrics. But when she learns that her twin sister, Zoe, has gone missing, she reluctantly returns to her family home just outside of Atlantic City. Shortly thereafter, she's shot at and saved by gorgeous undercover police detective Quinn Donovan, who tells her, in no uncertain terms, that Zoe is fine and that she should hightail it out of town for her sister's safety and her own. Instead, Ariana decides to don Zoe's miniskirt and do some sleuthing at the casino where Zoe worked. When Ariana isn't poking around the casino or heating up the pages with Quinn, she's trying to talk some sense into her parents, a pair of lovable Addams family look-alikes who are plotting their next money-making scheme. Phillips's passive prose prevents her protagonists from growing beyond their prescribed roles, and her ham-handed humor contributes little to the story (Ariana's family owns a monkey named Spank, which naturally leads to exchanges like this one Ariana: "Spank who?"; her mother: "Spank the monkey!"). Nevertheless, Phillips's tale is loaded with enough sexual pyrotechnics to light a fire under her fans.
Customer Reviews
Great story
Great story characters and depth with good development. Unnecessary cursing didn’t add to story. Warm ending with positive message
Highly entertaining!
This is book one in the Costas Sisters series and it features Ariana Costas and Detective Quinn Donovan. He’s undercover and she’s looking for her missing twin sister. These two hit it off right away but is it all part of the investigation? There is A LOT of self reflection going on with ALL of the characters.
This is by no means my favorite by this author but the Costas family is a hoot and highly entertaining! I can’t wait to revisit this crazy family in the next book.
Wonderful new series!
Thank you for the new series, Carly Phillips! This story’s characters struggle with deep internal emotions. The psychological dynamics of their respective families follow the decisions they make as adults. Ari and Quinn’s chemistry sparks on first contact. That contact happens when someone takes a shot at Ari (mistaking her for her twin sister) and Quinn knocks her into the sand, protecting her. Quinn realizes who Ari is right away and is surprised by his intense reaction to her. Throughout the story Ari has to come to terms with who she is as Ari and her professor persona Ariana. Can she have both sides of her personality? Quinn takes his job seriously and works to protect everyone he cares for. Deciding to risk a relationship could benefit them both, if they give it a chance. A little different Carly Phillips story, more emotional, a little less heat.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.