Review: Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes

Emerald Coast

by Anita Hughes

Publisher: St Martin's Griffin

Pages: 320

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Lily Bristol arrives at a luxurious resort in Sardinia for the grand opening of her newest home furnishing store on the Emerald Coast. She's a successful business woman with an international chain of stores from San Francisco to Milan. Thirty-two and newly divorced, she's ready to handle things on her own. At least until her private butler, Enzo, escorts her to a beautiful suite where she notices a suspiciously familiar pair of men's slippers and shaving kit.

Lily is horrified. Her ex-husband Oliver moved out of their restored Connecticut farmhouse six months ago, but they booked this trip when they were trying to save their marriage and never cancelled the reservation. Oliver, a food critic for the New York Times, is here covering Sardinia's hottest new restaurant. The only other available room is the adjoining suite; and worse, Oliver isn't alone. He's brought a twenty-something named Angela with him.

Lily is determined to make do and enlists Enzo to find her a suitable man. But it's not as easy to find new love as they both expected. When Lily and Oliver find themselves alone on a very important night, they turn to each other. Sparks begin to fly, but can they be together without breaking each other's hearts?

Kritters Thoughts:  Each time I go into a Anita Hughes book, I am pretty sure I am going to either love it or hate it.  Her writing varies from story to story and her characters are either really interesting and I love or I just can't handle them.  Surprisingly I am completely on the fence about this book.  The chapters flip back and forth from Lily Bristol and Oliver Bristol's point of view as they both end up on the Emerald Coast shortly after their divorce is final and they each have work reasons to be there and keep running into each other.  

Each chapter starts in the present as their time on the Emerald Coast progresses, but within each chapter they have a flashback to when they met or dated or got engaged and those flashbacks are chronological.  I liked the set up, but also found it to be a little cheesy.  It just didn't work for me how they were romancing different people and then each get a thought about their past, the concept was fine, but it just was a little too convenient.  

I didn't love or hate the main characters, they were just fine.  Neither made me want to root for them, but I didn't hate them either.  These characters just didn't grow for me, I felt as though the things that they were trying to overcome in page one was the same 

This is my first Anita Hughes book that just lands in the middle for me, it was fine, but not impressive.  I will still continue to read her books as they come out and I hope the next one has a little more than this one.


Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Ebook 2017 Challenge: 26 out of 50

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from St Martin's Press.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.