TRAIL OF KISSES

Author: Michelle Monkou ISBN: 9780373861514 2/2010 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: KIMANI

For recently laid-off Asia Crawford, an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Colorado Rockies—courtesy of her sorority sisters—is just the getaway she needs. Until Trace Gunthrey shows up, claiming he's booked in the same rustic cabin! The only solution? To split the two-week time-share. But with the gorgeous single father sharing her intimate living space, sleep is the last thing on Asia's mind…. In Atlanta, Trace is a judge who moves in high-powered circles. Here, he's just a man at one with nature…and the earthy beauty who seems set on seducing him. Trace came out West to get closer to his daughter. Instead, Asia's the one who's bonding with both of them, making the captivated widower long to let nature take its course—one scorching kiss at a time!

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Michelle Monkou sets her contemporary romance TRAIL OF KISSES (Ladies of Distinction series) at a resort in the mountains near Denver, where Asia Crawford and Trace Gunthrey find that they’ve been double booked in the same time-share home. Asia feels like she’s hit rock bottom after being alone for a year and being laid off from her job as a health care analyst in Chicago. But she doesn’t know rock bottom like Trace and his troubled pre-teen Hannah. He’s a judge in Atlanta’s juvenile court, and in order to keep Hannah from ending up in one of his colleagues’ courtrooms, he’s brought her to a two-week boot camp to get her life back on track. She seemed to do great right after her mother died from cancer, but lately her grieving process has taken a turn for the worse. Can Asia and Trace manage two weeks in the close confines of a two story, two bedroom (with housekeeper apartment) house without making some serious inroads on a relationship? Will Hannah be hurt more than Trace if Asia backs away?

Monkou creates very sympathetic characters with Trace and Asia, and even more so with Hannah. She’s at that age where she wants boundaries to rebel against to prove that her dad does care about her. Trace has never been very perceptive with what Hannah wants, having let his wife interpret for him. Now that he has to be both mom and dad, he’s failing miserably. I love how Hannah starts to make a scene in a restaurant and Trace immediately decides that they’ll get their meal to go. How did he eat his steak while driving? He’s also letting his mother-in-law rule the roost part of the week, which is muddying the parental authority waters considerably; especially since Marge has not allowed herself to finish grieving for her daughter. One of Asia’s strengths is her group of sorority sisters. They’ve always got her back, and it was their intervention in her life that sent her to Colorado to get perspective in the first place. While they expected and encouraged her to have some sort of fling to get her groove back, they were surprised when she actually does it. Thankfully, they recognize the signs that she’s falling in love with Trace when she’s not ready to admit it to herself. I’d love to have such a caring group of friends as Asia does.

TRAIL OF KISSES is the perfect example of the pitfalls on the trail to love when a hormonal pre-teen daughter is involved. It is touching, funny, and entirely genuine. These are definitely treacherous waters to navigate, especially when the pre-teen is a master manipulator. I love how complicated just having a quiet dinner alone can be for Asia and Trace when they have to consider not only their own calendars and emotional needs, but also those of Hannah and Marge. I think I’ll have to check out Monkou’s stories about the rest of the sorority sisters.

Susan Barton