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A review by dith_kusu
Between the Lines by Sally Malcolm
3.0
2.75 stars, maybe even up to 3 full. This was Okay, but it wasn't great. Perhaps it's the Persuasion push that made me like the first book more, or the helpings of angst that bolstered that first story for me. This one was alright, but I didn't really connect with the romance of the couple, didn't believe Theo and Luca's chemistry.
So Luca Moretti is the nomadic surf instructor who has returned to New Milton for his mother's pending sale of the historic family business Majestic Hotel, while Theo Wishart is the more uptight British-American project manager hotelier who is dispatched to close the sale. There's the whole meet cute to start where they bump each other at Dee's coffee shop and come away with the impression of the other being an asshole, albeit an attractive cute asshole. Then they meet in person in the enemies turned lovers, We Got Mail type situation. Theo of course is persuaded to stay for two weeks to get a picture of the town and fall in love with the run-down hotel that has seen better days, falls in love with Luca and gets into his whole family drama behind his objection of selling the hotel (beyond just not wanting it to be torn down and made into a golf resort).
Firstly, the process to Luca and Theo falling in love within the span of two weeks just wasn't convincing for me. It takes skill from the author to convince the reader of the couples' undying love within a shortened, heightened period of courtship for a novel, and this wasn't successful for me. I was just detached and never viscerally rooted for them. Then, the whole conflict of Luca being estranged from his mother for marrying a homophobic "traditional" man in Don was repetitive and unsatisfying. Don appearing in the first book briefly was already unpleasant with his comments, and now here he's more prominent and by the end, the whole push and pull family resentment just chocks up to them tolerating each other after Luca's mother has a major health scare.
I suppose it's true to life, in how you have to live with relations that are diametrically opposed to your social and moral views, but the depiction of this conflict fizzled out for me in the story. I didn't like Luca as much here, at least in comparison to Theo. It seemed like most of Luca's character was reactionary (albeit a lot of the time, justified) prickly anger, and more lamenting the circumstances than taking decisive action to change the problem.
Most of all though, the whole push and pull of Theo is here for the interests of Corporation, he is The Man, while Luca doesn't want the responsibility of family business being handed to him but also doesn't want the hotel to be sold, the fallout of the conflict was so cliche and the ultimate Great Romance Novel Misunderstanding. I hate this obligatorily executed romance trope where if the couple just communicated better, the drama would be easily resolved. The ending of Theo buying out the hotel and managing it together with Luca as a restored boutique hotel with capital injections seemed like the ultimate Romcom/Romance Novel type cliche hand wavey happy ending- whereas I was kind of shaking my head at the romantic gesture but bad business move of Theo giving away half the ownership interest to Luca.
Going off that point, the business of running the hotel seemed very vague and hand waving away realities of everyday hotel management, for me. How big is this boutique hotel that they don't have any extra staff, but Luca has plenty of time to flirt with Theo in teaching him body surfing and hanging around at the beach? Don and mom Jude can't have enough hands to be house cleaner, cook/caterer to breakfast, lunch and dinner needs at the hotel, and all the major and minor tasks needed to run the place. I'm probably just being too nitpicky.
There were elements I appreciated. The descriptions of the hotel architecture and the setting of the beach town of New Milton were evocative and took me to the Long Island small town summer tourism beach culture. I appreciated that Theo was depicted with dyspraxia, a condition I had no idea about before reading this and it was nice that the author wrote this in dedication for her daughter- the way Theo deals with his difference rang true and was part of him, not a preachy Sole Focus of the story. And the cameo of Finn and Josh at their wedding and them being very happy together, Theo and Luca slow dancing romantically to their first musical performance was sweet.
So Luca Moretti is the nomadic surf instructor who has returned to New Milton for his mother's pending sale of the historic family business Majestic Hotel, while Theo Wishart is the more uptight British-American project manager hotelier who is dispatched to close the sale. There's the whole meet cute to start where they bump each other at Dee's coffee shop and come away with the impression of the other being an asshole, albeit an attractive cute asshole. Then they meet in person in the enemies turned lovers, We Got Mail type situation. Theo of course is persuaded to stay for two weeks to get a picture of the town and fall in love with the run-down hotel that has seen better days, falls in love with Luca and gets into his whole family drama behind his objection of selling the hotel (beyond just not wanting it to be torn down and made into a golf resort).
Firstly, the process to Luca and Theo falling in love within the span of two weeks just wasn't convincing for me. It takes skill from the author to convince the reader of the couples' undying love within a shortened, heightened period of courtship for a novel, and this wasn't successful for me. I was just detached and never viscerally rooted for them. Then, the whole conflict of Luca being estranged from his mother for marrying a homophobic "traditional" man in Don was repetitive and unsatisfying. Don appearing in the first book briefly was already unpleasant with his comments, and now here he's more prominent and by the end, the whole push and pull family resentment just chocks up to them tolerating each other after Luca's mother has a major health scare.
I suppose it's true to life, in how you have to live with relations that are diametrically opposed to your social and moral views, but the depiction of this conflict fizzled out for me in the story. I didn't like Luca as much here, at least in comparison to Theo. It seemed like most of Luca's character was reactionary (albeit a lot of the time, justified) prickly anger, and more lamenting the circumstances than taking decisive action to change the problem.
Most of all though, the whole push and pull of Theo is here for the interests of Corporation, he is The Man, while Luca doesn't want the responsibility of family business being handed to him but also doesn't want the hotel to be sold, the fallout of the conflict was so cliche and the ultimate Great Romance Novel Misunderstanding. I hate this obligatorily executed romance trope where if the couple just communicated better, the drama would be easily resolved. The ending of Theo buying out the hotel and managing it together with Luca as a restored boutique hotel with capital injections seemed like the ultimate Romcom/Romance Novel type cliche hand wavey happy ending- whereas I was kind of shaking my head at the romantic gesture but bad business move of Theo giving away half the ownership interest to Luca.
Going off that point, the business of running the hotel seemed very vague and hand waving away realities of everyday hotel management, for me. How big is this boutique hotel that they don't have any extra staff, but Luca has plenty of time to flirt with Theo in teaching him body surfing and hanging around at the beach? Don and mom Jude can't have enough hands to be house cleaner, cook/caterer to breakfast, lunch and dinner needs at the hotel, and all the major and minor tasks needed to run the place. I'm probably just being too nitpicky.
There were elements I appreciated. The descriptions of the hotel architecture and the setting of the beach town of New Milton were evocative and took me to the Long Island small town summer tourism beach culture. I appreciated that Theo was depicted with dyspraxia, a condition I had no idea about before reading this and it was nice that the author wrote this in dedication for her daughter- the way Theo deals with his difference rang true and was part of him, not a preachy Sole Focus of the story. And the cameo of Finn and Josh at their wedding and them being very happy together, Theo and Luca slow dancing romantically to their first musical performance was sweet.