A review by katyanaish
That Scandalous Summer by Meredith Duran

4.0

This was a slow starter for me - the first quarter or so, I really had to force myself through. It was just... I guess a very dry setup, and both the hero and heroine seemed pretty superficial and unlikable, with the hero's brother being an almost caricatured dickbag villain (and then a character from the heroine's side became a pretty caricatured dickbag villain at the end... with an extra helping of stupidity, because seriously, how did he imagine that was possibly going to work in his favor?).

But after the rough opening, I really became engrossed. The hero and heroine developed surprising depth, really compelling and complicated personalities... and you could see that they just had a very bland mask that they wore publicly, letting people see what they expected to see.

It went from feeling superficial to making me cry. The story flowed together beautifully at the end.