One Reckless Summer

One of my favourite story lines has always been heroine/hero knew each other years ago and heroine is a 'good' girl and hero is a 'bad' boy from the wrong side of the tracks - or in this case - the wrong side of the lake. And this one only underscores that storyline love.

Jenny Tolliver was always a 'good' girl. She was the daughter of the widowed chief of police of Destiny Ohio, Walter Tolliver and never put as much as a toe out of place. But she is tired of her good girl self when she catches her husband cheating on her with her very own teaching assistant. So she ditches her husband, ditches her job in the 'big' city and heads back to the small town she grew up in. She's still a 'good' girl but things are about to change when she runs show more into the hero Mick Brody, one of the 'no good' Brody boys. She didn't know him very well, but does vividly remember an encounter she had with him when she was 16.

Things heat up between them Very Fast when she visits his side of the lake to better star gaze and unexpectedly runs into him and he demands she leave. He threatens her with his very self, but instead of leaving, she answers his challenge and thus follows the first of many steamy encounters between the two of them.

What starts off as raw lust though, slowly develops into love as each fills a need in the other. Jenny has been left feeling lacking as a sexy woman after her husbands cheating and her own 'good' girl upbringing. Mick is going through a very difficult and dark time and Jenny is his oasis.

I really enjoyed everything about this book, the small town feel, the friendship between Jenny and her best friend Sue Ann, the father/daughter relationship and ESPECIALLY the relationship between Jenny and Mick. I thought Jenny was a great heroine - someone I'd love to call friend.

And then there is Mick. Wow!! He just broke my heart. Without giving spoilers, I so identified with what he was going through and I totally 'got' why he was so drawn to Jenny. He had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but was trying to change his ways when he is called back into a very gray time. And man, is he sex on a stick!! I raced through this book and I know it's going to be one I read and reread again. This one I have no qualms about recommending - at all! It's funny in places and sad in others and came oh so close to making me cry. It has a poignancy to it and I always love a book that has that. show less

I just can't. Life is too short to read shitty books, people.

The heroine is that level of TSTL that is just epically painful to read. She goes into the woods in a deserted area, a man pops out of nowhere, yells at her to leave, starts kissing her (yeah, he's not got too many marbles rolling around up there either), has sex with him IN THE WOODS (did I mention they only vaguely knew each other in highschool? And that they exchanged maybe 10 sentences between each other before pants went flying? ), then gets yelled at again, and FREAKING FINALLY gets the hell out of there.

But when she sees him again?

BOOM! Off to the races again.

For real.

And that was only the first, like, 25 pages.

And only the most stupid thing she did.

There was show more more.

Much more. show less

Reviewed on DeweyDoesIt! Book Chat for Contemporary Romantics



Summary:

One Reckless Summer is the first book in the "Destiny Novel" series by Toni Blake. It centers on Jenny Tolliver, recently divorced and back home for the summer, trying to put her life back together and discover who she truly is. Her love interest is Mick Brody, a bad boy from the wrong side of the lake. Even as a teenager, Jenny found herself drawn to Mick's blue eyes and sultry voice. But "Good Jenny" would never date one of the no-good Brody boys. As adults, they have collided (literally), and the heat between them can't be denied. But Mick has a secret, one that threatens to tear them apart.

Review:

I really liked this book. It had several key elements that I enjoy in show more a storyline. The character development was fantastic. They were very believable and there was a natural progression of trust between them. I really felt like I was getting to know the characters as they were getting to know each other. Mick's repeated visits to ensure Jenny didn't tell anyone he was there started to seem a bit over the top. But then it becomes obvious that they are just excuses to see her and be with her. And when you find out the secret that he's hiding, WOW! It really pushes the character to a deeper level. Really, the only thing I didn't like about this novel was Jenny's father. It's like his wife's death has frozen him in time. The way he thinks about and rationalizes things is very old-fashioned, more so even than you would expect for his age. He finally learns to loosen up a bit, after meeting Anita, the attractive new bar owner, which is nice. The main characters for the following books in the series were introduced with just enough detail to get me interested in their stories too. Looking forward to spending more time in Destiny, Ohio!

Rating:

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I’m going to have to go against the grain here and say I am extremely disappointed with this book. I’d seen it compared to Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series, but - sex scenes aside - it read more as a small town cosy. The first half of the book was so slow I didn’t think I could possibly rate this above one star, but it picked up a bit as the story went on. By the end I enjoyed the story quite a bit, but I had so many issues with this book.

Jenny is a ‘good girl’, and her husband cheated on her, claiming that was the reason he did it. Newly divorced, she returns to her home town and starts having an affair with former town bad boy, Mick. Mick is there in secret and keeping a massive secret of his own that would get him in show more huge trouble if people found out. This is a fairly simple plot, which is probably why I didn’t enjoy it much. Next to nothing happened, and the relationship between Jenny and Mick consisted solely of him turning up at her door for sex, and then leaving again. It wasn’t enough for me, and after a while I wanted more than sex from the leading couple. A little more plot wouldn’t have been unwelcome either.

The sex was good. There was plenty of it and it was written well. It didn’t quite seem to fit the characters though. I thought Mick’s tragedy was nicely-written and quite emotional, but that only took up a few pages of the book.

There was far too much pondering. After a few pages of introductory pondering, the story started with a bang (of sorts), before dissolving into a good seventy or eighty pages of nothing much happening. Sure, we found out what colour everyone’s clothes were, and got lots of teen-level gossiping between the thirty-something characters, but there wasn’t an actual story. Telling, telling, telling and not one iota of showing. I could have made a drinking game out of how many times we heard about Jenny tingling between her legs and her nipple reactions whenever Mick was within a four hundred-thousand mile radius. And then her father started having groin-tingles about a woman of his own! It was like an erotica author was having a go at writing a conservative story but kept slipping up.

This was one of those annoying small towns, where everyone’s so GOOD. They all go to church and run cute little businesses and wear pearls and twin sets and attend tea parties with all the old biddies. Everybody was offended by things that weren’t offensive, and everyone was so old-fashioned. It was scary, and I couldn’t at all identify with most of the characters in the story.

Jenny wasn’t quite too stupid to live, but she had a few TSTL moments. It’s a common problem for me in these small town romances. All the women are so impossibly naive and GOOD. They do annoying, stupid things that put the hero in jeopardy because they’ve lived such sheltered lives they think their meddling is the best thing to do in any situation. I just can’t identify with them, and quite frankly, I couldn’t see the appeal Jenny had. Why would Mick be so attracted to boring little Jenny in her 1950s outfits? I don’t understand women like that, and I struggled to find anything to latch onto to make me sympathise with such a sheltered, naive character.
It was strange then that all the characters spent so much time discussing their sex lives in disturbing detail. These GOOD women discussing exactly what their lovers do with ice cubes?! It didn’t ring true for the characters. And because there was nothing but sex to the main relationship, all we got in the way of conversation between the friends was rehashing of the sex we’d only just read about. It really dragged.

Both characters became more likeable as the story went on, and in the last third I was invested in their relationship. I only wish there had been more to like in the beginning.

I had some trouble getting into the writing style of this book. We met so many people, and as soon as they came onto the page we learnt the length, colour and style of their hair; what they were wearing and what colour it was; and what they’d been like back in high school. And then we got updates on what they were doing now. There were big information dumps all over the place for no good reason. I don’t ever need to know what colour a minor character’s jacket is! It was especially strange as we didn’t even learn Jenny’s eye colour until about a hundred and fifty pages in. And even then that was the only information we got about her appearance. I simply could not picture her. Was she tall, short, thin, fat, blonde, brunette, pretty, hideous??!! The first mention of her hair came on page 185!! I know things like that shouldn’t matter, but I need something to picture her by!

I wasn’t buying the instant magnetic attraction thing the hero and heroine were supposed to have. They ran into each other in the forest in the dark, weren’t even sure what the other person looked like - two completely different people arguing about trespassing on private property - and we’re supposed to believe from that they’re destined to have wild sex? I just didn’t buy it.

I was really hoping to find this more like Virgin River (minus all the things I hate about that series, like the all the babies and the medical stuff). In fact I was really excited by the possibility of finding a Robyn Carr replacement. But I didn’t find it here. I liked some things about this book, and hold out some hope for the next book in this series - Sugar Creek - as the heroine is a far worldlier and potentially more relatable character. I’d love to find some more contemporary romances set in towns that aren’t populated by such infuriatingly narrow-minded characters, but maybe the next book will be more satisfying in that respect. show less

Though simply plotted this book was extremely enjoyable. I was immediately drawn in with Jenny and even more so when Mick appeared. While the progression of the relationship between Jenny and Mick felt a bit rushed to me at times, I did like the good girl/bad boy aspect of the story. Having said that I tend to like the build up to be a bit more drawn out when most others don’t. I also understand that in order for the book to be a reasonable length that progression needed to be abbreviated so in the end it worked well as written.

Although I am not a reader of many romance novels out of those I have read this was one of the best written. Blake provided vivid imagery as it related to the scenery around Jenny and Mick she also provided show more great depth of feeling on an emotional level. Both Jenny and Mick struggled with important issues – fidelity, honesty, death and family interaction – and did so realistically.

One element of the story I could have done without was the use of Mick’s nickname for Jenny. It was kind of cute/thrilling in the beginning when it was a throw back to their history together but then as their relationship began to evolve I think it’s fair to say his use of her real name could have been infused a little more.

The rigidity of the law-upholding father was a great addition to the story. His involvement allowed for the reader to see and feel the perceived differences between Jenny and Mick more acutely. However, for me, I didn’t need the added distraction of the budding relationship between he and the barmaid.

There is quite a bit of sex in this novel, it is not erotica and is tastefully done but for those who may be interested in a chaste love story this is not it. Sex plays a large role in how Jenny and Mick are brought together and the reader is shown interludes in some detail throughout.

If you are a fan of the romance genre then this book would be a selection worth investing in as it is an enjoyably quick contemporary read. show less

Good girl meets bad boy. Been there, done that. In fact the title and book reminded me a little bit of Robard's One Summer, one of my favorite books of all time. ORS is not quite as good as OS, but it's a great summer read. Jenny comes back to her home town to get her life back together after divorcing her cheating husband. She moves into the family vacation cabin on the lake and discovers that Mick, her tormentor from her teenage years, is also back living across the lake. I didn't like Jenny very much at first but Mick is totally yummy. Jenny is too much of a perfect good girl but when she meets Mick after rowing across the lake to do some stargazing, she does something reckless and they have a very steamy sexual encounter. Mick had a show more very rough childhood with two worthless parents. He is helping his brother who has escaped from prison and is now dying from cancer. Jenny is very attracted to Mick and is torn about keeping the presence of Mick's brother a secret from her father, the chief of police. The chemistry between them and their sizzling sexy affair really was the highlight of the book and made this an excellent book to take to the beach (which I did). (Grade: B+) show less

Jenny returns for the summer to her small home town after a painful divorce. She caught her Husband cheating on her he said its all her fault she is to boring in bed and to much like a June Cleaver type wife. Jenny meets Mick the boy from the wrong side of town. And they connect. The sex is hot and sizzling seems Jenny isn't June Cleaver when she's with Mick. The story is a heart wrencher and a sizzling romance all rolled into one.