ANCHORS AWEIGH

Author: Kathleen Bacus ISBN: 9780505527356 11/2008 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: DORCHESTER

Ahoy, mateys! With her grandma wedded and bedded (eeow!) Tressa Jayne Turner is looking forward to the weeklong cruise that follows. Good food. Warm beaches. Romantic sunsets. A swashbuckling ranger-type, Rick Townsend, who shivers her timbers. Nothing can take the wind out of Tressa’s sails this time. Nothing except this Love Boat’s the Titanic. For one thing, it’s a lo-cal “biggest loser” cruise. For another, Tressa’s bad-boy faux fiancé and his marriage-minded aunt are stowaways, and Tressa’s barely got her sea legs before a dastardly murder plot bobs to the surface. It’s a foul wind that’s blowin’—and not from the exercise-obsessed passengers. Add one whale of a Bermuda love triangle, and Tressa knows just how Captain Jack Sparrow feels when the rum is gone. Yo ho ho and a bottle of V-8! Arrgh!

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

I just reread my last Tressa Jayne Turner series review (for CALAMITY JAYNE HEADS WEST), and it said this was my favorite book yet in Bacus’ series. Well, she’s outdone herself again, and I have a new Calamity Jayne favorite.

ANCHORS AWEIGH is a sparkling, hysterical, danger-filled cruise ship adventure, overflowing with a cast of devious characters ranging from Tressa herself, to her family and assorted semi-loved ones. Ranger Rick and mysterious Manny are both aboard with their relatives and Tressa is sent into a tailspin as the men very deliberately court her for the first time.

She’s got other things on her mind though, since she’s overheard someone planning to kill their spouse and now the wanna-be killer is out to terminate her too. Can she solve the mystery before she gets tossed overboard? Or will she starve first, since her family somehow booked themselves on a diet cruise?

ANCHORS AWEIGH is broad romantic comedy set at a breakneck pace. Your pulse will be racing through the entire book since the action never slows. While this book seemingly ties up some long-term plot points, and Bacus herself has announced on her website that this might be the last in the series, I hope she’s wrong!

Heather Hiestand