Guest Reviewed by Ami
Title: Carolina Blues
Author: Virginia Kantra
Series: Dare Island #4
Heroine/Hero: M/F Contemporary Romance
Genre: Lauren Patterson/Jack Rossi
Length: 304 Pages
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: October 7, 2014
Available at: Berkley, Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads
Blurb: Jack Rossi is Dare Island’s new police chief. The laid-back North Carolina community is just what he needs to recover from a rocky marriage and a big-city police department. He’s learned his lesson: no more high-profile women or high-pressure jobs. The last thing he wants is an unconventional alt girl rocking his world.
Grad student Lauren Patterson made headlines when she kept a bank robbery from going bad. She’s fled to Dare Island to clear her head and focus on writing her story. However, sexy Jack Rossi is a distraction that’s too hot to ignore, and it’s igniting an affair too combustible to resist—or quit.
But when their pasts come looking for them, Jack and Lauren find themselves fighting for the future they deserve, whatever the price.
Review:
The good news is the story of Dare Island citizens continues without the Fletchers as main characters. The bad news (at least for me) is the story continues without the Fletchers as main characters. Okay, let me try to explain…
I really loved The Fletchers (the three siblings that were the main characters for the previous three books). I was quite invested with their love stories. I admit that when I saw that there would be a 4th book in this series, I was a bit, uhm, skeptical? I wondered if Ms. Kantra would be able to bring forward the same charms with different characters from Dare Island (just like Jill Shalvis does with her Lucky Harbor series). She did introduce police chief Jack Rossi in Luke’s book (book #3 – Carolina Man) and hostage girl turned author, Lauren Patterson, in Meg’s book (book #2 – Carolina Girl). So it’s not like these characters were totally new, right?
Unfortunately for me, it felt like the magic was gone once the Fletchers stopped being in the main spotlight. I guess what made the previous three books a good series was that the Fletchers were a unit, a family. The books were about them – how they were working together to tackle their issues (Tess’s accident, Luke’s daughter) was what pulled me in. Jack and Lauren felt like outsiders, and I couldn’t develop enough interest with the both of them or their road to love.
See, Jack felt flat compared to Luke, for example. He was just a nearly 40-year-old guy, a divorcé, who wanted a different kind of woman compared to his ex-wife. While Lauren … her back-story should be interesting (she negotiated her way out with other hostages from a bank robbery gone wrong) but that kind of situation also felt slightly over the top – like it could only have happened once in a lifetime, which resulted in my feeling detached from her. I couldn’t connect to Lauren’s back-story at all. Her wanting to just have a hook-up also didn’t work with her characterization.
The ending was actually kind of sweet though. And I did enjoy anything related to the Fletchers who still made their appearances – like Luke’s wedding to Kate (I was so happy that it was included here, considering that Luke and Kate’s book was my favorite Dare Island novel). It was a wonderful wedding! In conclusion, personally, it was good but didn’t live up to the previous three books. It seemed that the series would continue though. But I’m not sure if I’m interested enough to check it out.
Overall Impression: It was good.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in return for a fair and honest review.*
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