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A review by attytheresa
Angels Landing by Rochelle Alers
2.0
I found this second in the Cavanaugh Island series a bit disappointing. Kara, a NYC social worker feeling burned out and exhausted, one day finds herself at a will reading in Charleston. Shockingly, she finds out that her biological father is someone other than the man she has always called 'Daddy', and he has left her his entire estate that includes millions in cash as well as a 2000 acre property and all the buildings and contents thereon located on Cavanaugh Island, just outside Charleston. There are of course stipulations: she must live there for 5 years and restore it. There are also a whole bunch of angry even threatening disinherited relatives, all complete strangers to her. Due to the threats verbalized during the will reading, Cavanaugh's sheriff, a retired marine named Jeff, is tasked with keeping an eye on Kara and Angel's Landing. One look at each other and the sparks fly, the chemistry sizzles, and a romance blossoms though each fight it, claiming that marriage and permanence is not for either of them for different reasons.
I found the romance too drawn out and tepid - it was so obvious from the first moments that this was a HEA couple, head right to the alter, don't pass GO! The impediments for both of them just felt lame. The Gullah culture and the ongoing efforts to keep development away from the island as well as the restoration of Angel's Landing needed to be more developed and important in the story than it ended up. It's there - and it's what makes this series so appealling to me, but here it just felt suppressed, held in the background.
Or maybe the author having Jeff, 40 years old, constantly refer to 33 year old Kara as 'baby' -- his main endearment-- just set my teeth too much on edge.
I found the romance too drawn out and tepid - it was so obvious from the first moments that this was a HEA couple, head right to the alter, don't pass GO! The impediments for both of them just felt lame. The Gullah culture and the ongoing efforts to keep development away from the island as well as the restoration of Angel's Landing needed to be more developed and important in the story than it ended up. It's there - and it's what makes this series so appealling to me, but here it just felt suppressed, held in the background.
Or maybe the author having Jeff, 40 years old, constantly refer to 33 year old Kara as 'baby' -- his main endearment-- just set my teeth too much on edge.