In exchange for an honest review, I was provided a free eARC of The Summer Retreat by Sheila Roberts.
Release Date: April 23, 2019
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Official Description (courtesy of NetGalley)
Celeste Jones has plans for a perfect summer with her boyfriend (and hopefully soon-to-be fiancé)—until he dumps her to be with the woman he’s had on the side for months. Heartbroken and furious, Celeste resolves to move on. When the going gets tough, the tough…okay, the not-so-tough go to the beach.
As soon as school lets out for the summer, she waves goodbye to her first-graders, packs up her bikini and heads for Moonlight Harbor, where she knows her big sister, Jenna, will receive her with open arms. Jenna could probably use some help at the Driftwood Inn, and Celeste is happy to do chores around the place in exchange for a relaxing summer escape. She just needs something—or someone—to distract her from her troubles.
Finding The One can be tricky, and Jenna is determined to make sure Celeste gets it right this time around. Not that Jenna’s an expert. She’s still trying to sort out her own love life. But if both sisters listen to their hearts, eventually they’re bound to discover that life—and love—is good at the beach.
My Thoughts
The Summer Retreat is your basic romance story, but while I enjoy romances, I didn’t particularly care for this one.
Here are the reasons I didn’t like this story:
1) There were too many unnecessary points of view and they were not separated very clearly. The book is told from 5 points of view, when in my opinion, it would have been less cluttered with 2 or 3 points of view – Celeste, Henry, and maybe Paul.
2) What is the appeal of a love triangle? How often are women actually in a love triangle? And this story has both sisters, Celeste and Jenna, in love triangles! I feel that the story would have been better with the only love interest being Henry and the point of conflict could have come from Celeste’s ex, Emerson (who kept texting her in the book).
3) What woman in her right mind would choose to be in a relationship where a guy only accepts your dog because you two are a package deal? Big red flag!
Things I liked:
1) I really enjoyed Henry as a character and wished that the story would have focused more on Celeste and him individually and together versus the whole Paul and Celeste, Jenna and Brody, Hyacinth and her drama…Henry was probably the best part of the book.
…okay, that’s all I can really think of that I enjoyed about the book.
In Conclusion
I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with The Summer Retreat. The whole story just didn’t sit well with me and actually made me not want to read the whole month of April and most of May, which put me behind on my reading.
But, there were some really good characters that were written and the story of Celeste and Henry has a lot of potential. Just because I didn’t enjoy it, doesn’t mean someone else won’t. For my rating, I give this one 2 stars.
