Mia Wells is about to reach all her career goals, she's in the biggest meeting of her life when she receives the phone call of her life- her soulmate, the one who vanished, has returned. Unfortunately for Mia he's in the hospital in a coma, leaving so many questions unanswered. Twelve years ago Mia and Flynn were an unlikely pair- a college student and a drifter with a past- and then Flynn disappeared without an explanation leaving Mia to recover from her heartbreak alone. Now she has to decide if she's going to walk away from the life she's built with Michael for the man she's always loved.Beautiful Disaster isn't really the type of book I usually pick up. I tend to stay away from books that are marketed as romantic but have two potential love interests.
I was a bit worried that I'd hit a point that made me so uncomfortable with the relationships that I would need to stop reading, but it never happened. The conflict is there but it's handled as honestly and briefly as possible given the circumstances. The author does a great job of telling the story from Mia's point of view, and making you really believe in her love for Flynn, but drops the ball a bit with Flynn and Michael. I'm sure her intent is to make them both sound terrific, but she ends up with two guys who are too good to be true. They both end up as caricatures of great guys and it's hard to believe.
One other small quibble- there is a side plot that involves colleges in the South and the author places the University of Alabama in Birmingham instead of Tuscaloosa. It is possible she's referring to UAB but that's not how it's written. Fact check!
The story of Mia and Flynn is beautifully told, the pacing of the book is great and I enjoyed reading it, but in the end it didn't make my top five of 2010.
You can find Laura Spinella on the web here. Thanks to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read it as well. This was the first piece of mail I got in the new house.
Beautiful Disaster
by Laura Spinella
Berkley Books
2011
370 pages
Source: publisher
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Sounds like one I would like:)
ReplyDeleteThe book does sound good. I know what you mean about those fact checks. I read a book recently that referred to Virginia Tech as Virginia Tech University, which is wrong. Little things like that can really bug me.
ReplyDeleteI shy away from anything relating to romance unless there is the end of the world involved, or it's masked under some other guise. I just find that it's difficult to do well... romances that is.
ReplyDeleteMan, don't you hate the fact check thing? I read a book once where it said the A Train in NYC went to the Bronx. I was like - ummm FACT CHECK! It does NOT!! Little things like that urk me so much.
ReplyDelete