Sunset Bay
Grade : C-

Sunset Bay is the first book I’ve read by Susan Mallery. It’s about a responsible, obedient girl who falls in love with a bad boy when they’re young and meets him again when her world is falling apart. While I normally enjoy this type of story, I did not enjoy this book. With its predictable plot, excessive drama, and unremarkable characters, I just couldn’t connect with it.

Megan is an awkward teenager who has a dream of designing clothing. Unfortunately, her mother is a nightmare, a gorgeous nightmare, who constantly compares her to her gorgeous younger sister, Leanne, and reminds her that she needs to have a stable career since she’ll never marry well with her looks. She escapes the house one night after high school graduation and goes to a party where she sees her ex-boyfriend, Travis, for the first time since he was sent to prison a year and a half ago. Sparks fly again and before you know it, they’re heading to Las Vegas to spend the weekend together.

Leanne has always been jealous of Megan’s and their father’s very close relationship, even though she has the total devotion of their mother, so when she snoops and finds out where Megan’s gone, she quickly tells Daddy. Megan and Travis return from their very memorable trip to find Megan’s father waiting for them. Travis, who also had a bad experience when he got home, asks her to run away with him. It’s either leave right at that moment with him or never see him again. With her father standing there, Megan decides to stay and follow through with the responsible college plan laid out for her and Travis takes off on his motorcycle.

Ten years later, Megan’s life is perfect. She’s an accountant at a great firm and is about make partner, and she’s about to marry a hot doctor. Since we’re told over and over that her life couldn’t get any better, it’s no surprise that every aspect of it starts to fall apart. A woman at her office is trying to take her down, she calls off her wedding, and a secret from the past tears her family apart. To help her get over the pain of it all, Megan’s friends take her to Vegas, where she coincidentally bumps into Travis again. The two immediately jump into bed, but lots of different obstacles must be overcome before they are officially together again, including some ill-timed visits from Megan’s ex-fiance.

I found a lot of situations in this book unbelievable. The family crisis involves Megan’s father, who reacts in a way that I found incredibly unlikely given the characters’ history. I just couldn’t imagine a real person, and especially a real father, acting as he did. In the second part of the book, the nasty Leanne is suddenly a great person, which was very jarring considering there wasn’t really any explanation and she was so evil in the beginning. I even found Megan’s account of things difficult to believe. Her thoughts flip flop so much that when she has an opinion, I didn’t take it seriously because it was very likely she’d change her mind in a couple pages.

Another issue I had with the book was the intense drama of every little thing. I felt like I was watching a soap opera unfold. Everyone kept making impassioned speeches or having dramatic discussions and often these bursts would seemingly come out of nowhere. One of them even involved Leanne flashing her boobs at her potential boss (during a speech about being respected in the business, oddly enough). Despite all the high emotions, I didn’t feel any of them. The characters would say they felt one way, but I didn’t experience the emotion with them. If the story had actually unfolded on a screen, I would have said the characters were overacting.

This was not a unique story – I saw everything coming long before it happened. While I appreciated certain plot elements (I’m always a sucker for some good girl/bad boy action), it’s been done more convincingly. I didn’t like the overdramatic nature of Sunset Bay, nor did I connect with any of the characters. Overall, it was an unsatisfactory read.

Reviewed by Andi Davis
Grade : C-

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : April 21, 2009

Publication Date: 2009/05

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Andi Davis

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x