Genre: Paranormal, FF Romance
LGBTQ+ Category: Bi, Gay, Gender Fluid, Lesbian
Reviewer: Linda, Paranormal Romance Guild
Get It At Amazon | Publisher | B&N | Bella Books
About The Book
“Welcome to Paradise Island Resort, where we specialize in sun, sand, and self-improvement.”
Jess Parker has entered middle age single, bitter, and emotionally wounded. Even her friends have noticed her downward spiral into anger and resentment. Then she wins a self-help vacation to the beautiful Paradise Island Resort. Despite spending the past few years with her emotions on ice, the warm tropical climate and hotter resort manager, Lucia Cruz, succeeds in thawing her heart. Jess falls for Lucia, even knowing that her island stay is limited. Four weeks is hardly long enough when love is on the line.
Jess will need to make some tough choices about the rest of her life when her time is up. She’s vowed to be a better person and has started making positive changes, but it’s on Jess to put her heart and soul into it. She also holds onto the hope that some connections, no matter how unexpected, simply can’t be broken.
Author’s Note: Not a series but written in a shared world with my two contemporary novels… technically pulling them into a paranormal universe. I’m sneaky like that.
The Review
Jess Parker is in her forties. Her wife cheated on her and left, and after the divorce she used food to overcome her anger and hurt. She is suffering from menopause, has given up everything she once loved – softball and riding her bike – and has turned into a bitter woman. Her attitude toward other people borders on hostile, and when her best friend Shell convinces her she needs a vacation, she agrees.
Having won a free two-week tropical holiday at the Paradise Island Resort, she books her trip. The resort is a self-improvement retreat, where guests are required to see a therapist and sign up for two activities. When she arrives at the resort, she is met by the resort manager Lucia Cruz, who is thin, pretty, and who Jess immediately hates.
Her therapist, Dr. Kam, knows exactly what is required in Jess’s case to get her on the road to healing and change. He is just what you would expect a therapist to be like, and his sessions with Jess made for some enlightening reading. She begins to be less bitchy, and makes friends with Lucia.
Jess has given up on having a relationship, but accepts the fact that Dr. Kam was right when he asks her if she wants to be happy. Things heat up with Lucia, and knowing that her stay is going to be short and that Lucia can’t leave the resort, she grabs hold of any happiness she can.
She begins art classes, and learns to love them. Her sessions with Dr. Kam become something she looks forward to, and she signs up for other activities too, things that she had never considered before. Lucia gets her to ride her bike again and hike, some of the things she stopped doing when she was busy lamenting her sad life.
Although it’s forbidden for staff to mingle with guests, Lucia and Jess find a way to be together, and their relationship grows stronger despite the short time they have together. Jess is finally happy, but she wonders if she will remain so when she returns home.
This was a beautiful story of a middle-aged woman finding herself and putting her pain behind her, where it belongs. Jess and Lucia are wonderful characters that I couldn’t help rooting for, but there is a secret about the resort that could put an end to any chance of a real future together. There were also surprises, sex and a second chance at the brass ring.
When I first began the book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Thankfully I wound up loving it. Five stars.
The Reviewer
I am an avid reader the mother of 3 sons and grandmother to seven grandchildren. Since retiring I have been doing more reading while volunteering as a CASA worker. CASA is an organization that works with the family court system to ensure that children are in the best living situation. There are way too many children that get overlooked in the foster care system and I visit homes and make visits to the parents. I was born and raised in New York and my husband of 50 years and I live in Upstate New York.
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