The Quinn Brothers [2-in-1]: Sea Swept • Rising Tides

Sea Swept:

A family drama/romance novel following three adoptive brothers in the aftermath of their adoptive father's unexpected death. There are questions about the circumstances of the car accident that killed him, there's a ten-year-old boy he was in the process of adopting, there's a pretty social worker the oldest brother finds pretty irresistible. I was fairly impressed for the first third of this novel--Roberts puts the family drama on the page with skill, and the relationship among the three adult brothers is well done. The ten year old read like a ten year old, the setting of the Chesapeake Bay was decently evoked. But as the novel went on, I got less interested in it. The female lead was the least well crafted of all the show more characters, the sex read like obligatory graphic but not character-specific sex scenes from the kind of eighties movie that was way more interested in something else but felt like it had to get at least one of those scenes in, and watching how Roberts got her characters got their HEA felt perfunctory rather than fun. What I liked about the book in the beginning carried on being good throughout, but the rest of it kind of soured the whole thing for me. ~Oct 2016 show less

CHESAPEAKE BAY QUARTET