Review: Summer Escape with the Tycoon

There's a kismet that can happen in reading - when the right book finds you at exactly the right time.  After finishing a dumpster fire of a book that had more annoying over-the-top drama to fuel a nightmare soap opera for a decade, Summer Escape with the Tycoon by Donna Alward was just what the doctor ordered.  It's a quiet romance, between two people suffering from their own identity crisis, and realistic baggage that supplies conflict.  Some readers would probably label that boring.  I am not "some readers."

Molly Quinn has always done what is expected of her.  Her older brother was tragically killed by a drunk driver and from that day forward every hope and dream that their parents had for Jack transferred to Molly.   She was the smartest girl in school.  Graduated from Harvard Law.  Specialized in family law (yes, a divorce lawyer), joined her father's firm, and became partner.  But it's starting to get to her.  The grind of the job of dissolving marriages.  Of dividing up lives. Over seeing couples, no longer in love, squabbling over everything from the wedding china to the family pet to their own children.  She's attending a charity function when something in her finally snaps.  She bids in the silent auction on an outdoor adventure-style vacation package.  Snorkeling, kayaking, zip-lining, that kind of thing.  And she wins it.

The trip gets off to a rocky start thanks to a hotel room mix-up, and that's how she meets Eric Chambault - a business tycoon from Montreal who specializes in corporate takeovers.  Basically he buys up struggling companies, trims the fat, sometimes dismantles whole sections, and makes a bunch of money doing it.  He's also just gone through a messy divorce with his wife's lawyer squeezing $30 million out of him.  So finding out Molly, who he thinks is in his room by mistake (it's vice versa), is a divorce lawyer means best first impressions are not made.

Now anyone who has read more than one romance novel in their day would assume that this would be the start of an adversarial relationship where the two characters would spend the next 200+ pages bickering at each other.  And that's where you'd be wrong.  Because despite bad first impressions, despite sometimes putting a foot in their mouth, these are two adult characters who apologize, say "hey, let's start over" and they miraculously do.  They open up about their fears, their pasts, and the complicated relationships they have with their respective families.  In short, you get to read about two people getting to know each other, finding out who they really are, and falling in love.

Alas, it's a "vacation fling" though - so when an external bit of conflict arrives in the final third both Molly and Eric fall back into bad habits (as you do) and have to find their way back to each other.  What's refreshing here?  Is that they recognize that they're BOTH at fault for the blow-up.  She realizes she could have done better and he realizes that he completely over-reacted.

Look, I love over-the-top angst as much as the next reader.  I like plenty of books with outrageous sounding plots and conflict that strains the seams of credulity.  But when all that goes horribly awry and I find myself word vomiting my feelings all over my blog in Ranty McRanty Pants fashion?  To have a book like this come along that shows me the exact opposite?  It restores my faith in the genre a bit.  Sure, Eric is a tycoon and Molly isn't exactly hurting for money either - but we all got problems. And generally speaking?  Most of our baggage is pretty basic.  Strained relationships with family members.  Dissatisfaction with life choices.  And it's nice to read a romance about two people with normal baggage finding each other and falling in love.  Because isn't that what we hope for our ourselves?

Final Grade = B