Simply Irresistible by Jill ShalvisMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is like salted caramel. Sweet and sugary with just enough salt to offset and make it yummy.
Jill Shalvis does the typical Chick Lit thing here: she sets up characters in a "world" - in this case it's a town along the Washington coast - sets up the romance and goes from there. She follows the typical Chick Lit formula, but somehow managed to make it just a tiny bit different. This story was such fun.
Maddie, our main character, is the middle child in a family of three sisters. They all have the same mom but different dads, so they were all raised differently. When Mom dies, they converge on a run-down B&B that Mom left behind in order to fix it up and sell it.
The interaction between these three sisters is priceless. Dialogue is where Shalvis really shines in her writing and here it is witty and quick. Maddie's character begins to be revealed through these scenes, so we get a really good sense of who she is as an only child who avoids confrontation like the plague. She has just left a relationship with an abusive boyfriend, her biological clock is ticking and she's a bit neurotic. This makes her sympathetic rather than annoying; we see her slowly emerge from her emotional hiding place.
Jax, the love interest, is the typical hunk. But he is mostly described that way thru the observations of others around him. While there's a lot of "he's so fine" there is also a fair amount of interaction with his brothers and best friend. Again, enough salt to offset the sugar and make him believable. His backstory is revealed slowly but it isn't nearly as interesting as Maddie's. He is much more of a typical stock character while Maddie and her sisters are more dimensional. It isn't that Jax is boring - he's just what you'd expect in a chick lit novel.
The romance happens pretty much instantly, which might bother some. They've suddenly each met their soulmate, yada yada, whatever. The romance isn't the most interesting thing here. It's the character development that makes it good.
On audio the book is narrated by Celeste Cuilla. While she is an excellent narrator I didn't find her a good match for this story. Her voices for the women were great - but her voices for the men sounded a bit too feminine. As a voice actor she wasn't able to distinguish them as decidedly male. Because of this, I set aside the audio and read it as an ebook. Once I did that, it was a wonderful book.
I don't generally read Chick Lit; I instead opt for New Adult and all its angst. But in this case, the wit and banter between the characters made it just delightful. This is the first book in pretty long series so OK, Lucky Harbor, I'm hooked. What else have you got?
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