This one was EXACTLY what I needed. After all the crazy crazy at work, being sick and mostly feeling tired I found that I lost my ability to sit down and gulp a whole book (OK, most of the time it's half a book..). Adding to that the poor choice of books I have lately and it's really been a while since I sat down and read a book I could enjoy beginning to end. Yeah, I know that this one is 80 pages but that's the fun in novellas, you don't have the time to invest in a "real read" you want a little "time off" you want to have it "all" right now a story with a beginning - plot - end and all in about two hours.
The problem with this fabulous idea is that good novellas are hard to find.. It's hard to write a whole story that can bring us everything a good book has in less than a quarter of the length of a regular novel... after all, there is a need for all those "extra" pages.. Mostly you feel like the novella is missing something or it progresses to damn quickly (shortage of pages anyone?) but you know what, even with all the difficulties some authors can pull it off and Samantha can surly do!
As I've said something like a million times before, the first thing I read by Samantha was her short novella "Tight Quarters" on Strangers on a Train Bundle and from there on I've been hunting the books written by all 5 authors. With Samantha it's a little more difficult since she wrote so much and I have such a long reading list that I know that it will take me a few years to catch up on all she wrote in the past. I've started up "small" reading her short novellas, and I loved most of them!
So lets get back in business - We have Audra and Scott. She, 43 years old, divorced and working hard to make her new antic shop gain a profit. He, a 34 years old ex-jock who own a hockey bar next door to her shop (also being her landlord since he own the whole building). There are sparks between the two of them the past few years she have been renting the place from him but she never accepts any dating proposal from him, not wanting to get involved with someone that has a different woman every other night, not to mention mixing work with pleasure isn't a good idea... He isn't what she thinks he is though, he is interested in her, not some fantasy girl that he is or was photographed with and he doesn't seem to have the opportunity to show her differently until now - when he helps her out of a miserable situation on a stormy night. A stormy night she is stuck in her shop and later on stuck with him since the storm makes it impossible for her to go back home. Here comes the one hot night!! and after that a disaster that changes everything between them. Audra just sees it as a confirmation that she should have stayed away from Scott, and he is frustrated since there seem to be nothing he could do to fix the situation and bring her back to him. But a solution is found and I loved how this short novella concluded, giving me a taste for more (I guess her best friend will be continuing this series though I haven't seen any mention of what is planned.. series of short novellas? this being a prelude to a series containing whole novels? we'll see..).
I feel like adding something though.. I know that some people want a whole closure - seeing/reading how it all worked out, so when you close the book/kindle you have a truly HEA feeling. Here, and I guess in most novellas it's not like that. You get a closure to the situation, you get an opportunity for the main characters to hit it off, you have an idea about what's in store for both of them financially but it's more of getting the feeling that everything will work out than a real knowledge it does. So keep that in mind :) For me it was enough as it is.
I really enjoyed putting everything aside and delving into this one. Recommended!
I can't sign off without recommending "Bending Over Backwards" as well. It's longer (about 150 pages) and SO worth the read.
Additional Details: Kindle Ebook, 80 pages, 20 April 2014 / On GoodReads
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