Review: Sunset Thunder

Sunset Thunder by Shannyn Leah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I found this book by turns irritating and charming, hence the mixed rating.

Violet Caliendo is a wedding planner at her family's five star resort. However, today's couple are trying her patience because it's none other than her ex-husband Joel Benson and his fiancee Missy, who just happened to have been a maid at the Caliendo resort. Just to add to the general joy of the day, Joel's best man and best friend Ryder Caldex, renowned playboy, is joining the select gathering and Violet's large family are all hovering, desperate to see if she is okay.

When tension and frustration lead to hot sex in the hotel restroom with Ryder Violet is horrified and yet strangely attracted to the no-good, womanising, braggart. Soon afterwards Violet's two children are supposed to be spending a day sailing with Ryder and Joel, but Joel bails at the last minute. Violet and her children end up spending the day with Ryder who turns out to be a lot sweeter than Violet believed.

But as the romance grows the pressures from family, friends and ex-husbands causes Violet and Ryder to rethink their romance.

This is supposed to be the first in a series, I don't know whether there was a preceding series because there seemed to be a lot of references to other romances and dark deeds by Violet's late father which appear to have happened previously.

I liked Ryder and Violet and her children together, that was a charming romance. Violet's mother and siblings were frankly confusing and I have no idea why they behaved the way they did or why Izzy seemed to have an inability to behave like an adult. The entire family appeared to be totally dysfunctional with children going missing, the mother not curbing the father's excesses, etc.

However, I was surprised at the number of typos in a book which was released two or three years ago. Also, the way in which both Ryder and Violet behaved like teenagers (angst, angst, angst, leaping to conclusions, holding onto absurd beliefs etc) was tiresome. And then the ridiculous plot to explain all that happened between Violet and Joel just raised more questions than it answered for me.

Also, and this is a personal gripe, when an author offers me an ARC of their book I don't expect it to have been published in 2015 AND free on Amazon. An ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy not a two years after the event copy.

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