HEARTBREAK HOTEL
Author: Jill Marie Landis ISBN: 0345453301 4/2005 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: BALLANTINE
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A supportive wife and mother, Tracy Potter always played by the rules and maintained a perfect home. But after her husband’s sudden death, she learns the devastating truth: all she believed in–from their wealth to their marriage vows-–was a perfect lie. Forced to start over, Tracy puts everything into resurrecting the Heartbreak Hotel, a long-abandoned turn-of-the-century inn overlooking the Pacific Ocean. She’s determined to never again believe in anyone but herself–until the night mysterious loner Wade MacAllister checks in. Intrigued by the secret disillusionment in his eyes–one that mirrors her own–Tracy finds that a growing desire challenges her at every turn.
The Heartbreak Hotel is a perfect place for Wade to hide not only from his notoriety as an author, but the shocking events in his past. Drawn to Tracy and her struggle to succeed, he is quickly compelled to risk the anonymity on which his survival depends. By the time Tracy discovers the handsome stranger’s true identity, there’s more than ever at stake. She is not only forced to risk another broken heart and learn to trust again, but she must fight to make Wade believe in their love.
Along California’s sparkling blue coastline and amid its mist-shrouded nights, Heartbreak Hotel unfolds a suspenseful and yet tender story of second chances against all odds, of families lost and regained . . . and of the ways unexpected love can make even the most disillusioned hearts believe. |
 RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:
There is so much to say about HEARTBREAK HOTEL that this review could go on forever. Unfortunately, most of what I want to say is not favorable. However, no one benefits from a completely negative review, and Jill Marie Landis' last offering, MAGNOLIA CREEK, is excellent, so I will try to chalk this one up to a lack of editing—or lack of caring, bad karma, or—something.
If you can make it past the first half of the book, with its one-to-two page, sometimes half-a-page chapters, and sentences that make absolutely no sense, you got it made. A ghost and his tragic life make an appearance about half way in and that helps the storyline for a minute, but even he, too, cannot save this one. I suppose the love story part of the plot is okay, but the main characters are both a bit busy with life to create much heat. At times, I admit, the stories surrounding the hero and heroine can be touching and heartwrenching. Unfortunately, 80% of the time it's boring and dry.
This one was tough for me to get through. I just could not get past the first part of the book even though it does pick up. I won't say it's bad, it's decent if you are not looking for something completely absorbing, or expecting Landis' best.
Shannon Johnson |
