Book Review: Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews

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Beach Town
Author: Mary Kay Andrews
Reading Level: Adult
Genres: Chick Lit | Romance
Released: May 19th 2015
Review Source: St. Martin's Press

Greer Hennessy is a struggling movie location scout. Her last location shoot ended in disaster when a film crew destroyed property on an avocado grove. And Greer ended up with the blame.

Now Greer has been given one more chance--a shot at finding the perfect undiscovered beach town for a big budget movie. She zeroes in on a sleepy Florida panhandle town. There's one motel, a marina, a long stretch of pristine beach and an old fishing pier with a community casino--which will be perfect for the film's climax--when the bad guys blow it up in an all-out assault on the townspeople.

Greer slips into town and is ecstatic to find the last unspoilt patch of the Florida gulf coast. She takes a room at the only motel in town, and starts working her charm. However, she finds a formidable obstacle in the town mayor, Eben Thinadeaux. Eben is a born-again environmentalist who's seen huge damage done to the town by a huge paper company. The bay has only recently been re-born, a fishing industry has sprung up, and Eben has no intention of letting anybody screw with his town again. The only problem is that he finds Greer way too attractive for his own good, and knows that her motivation is in direct conflict with his.

Will true love find a foothold in this small beach town before it's too late and disaster strikes? Told with Mary Kay Andrews inimitable wit and charm, Beach Town is this year's summer beach read!

When your headed out on a 7 day cruise you at least have to pack one or two book. It's 7 days on that large cruise ship, your bound to just need to sit and relax and this is perfect time to read. So when I looked at all the books I had to choose from to review, Beach Town grabbed my attention immediately. Just the title alone made sense as a good choice for summer beach reading on a cruise headed to different beaches.

Beach Town and Mary Kay Andrews were unknown to me so I took the risk that it would be a great book choice to take along on my trip. And I'm very glad to report my intuition was on point in the beginning (I'll later explain why in the beginning). I didn't even read the synopsis until I was on the boat already. The book cover and title were enough to sell me on grabbing the very large book.

Beach Town starts us off introducing us to Greer, she is traveling the highways of the coast of Florida and she is on the hunt for a beach town for a specific filming location. See Greer is a film location scout. So she goes to these locations film film directors described to her that they believe will be the right fit for the movie they will create and her job is to find that perfect spot.

In Beach Town, Greer has been given the job to find the perfect "beach town" that is not a tourist spot and well off the grid with its palms trees and shrimp boats. Sounds easy right? Not the case at all for Greer. Also her career is on the line, so this location must be found if she wants to survive her career, last job she was on was a major bust. So Greer is on a mission and with a deadline too.

Luckily she happens to stumble upon just the right place. She might have a hick here an there but nothing she doesn't think they can work with. She calls in and everything is set to begin filming. So she needs to prep the location for all the cast, crews and everyone else involved in a very small little town that probably hasn't seen that much traffic in years. And when I say little, its so small that the major of the town is also owner of the motel where he is the handyman. There is an old casino though that might just destroy everything for Greer, if she cant get everyone to agree that it is used in the filming of the movie.

So around this time is when my intuition begins to falters. I was highly engrossed in the book until the relationship between Greer and Eben (town's major) started to take shape. The chemistry between the two was not there for me at all. It was like having someone pour a bucket of cold water on me while reading. I went from hot to cold in the blink of an eye. Which is a shame because I really liked the shape the story was taking. So pretty much after that happen, I did finish the book because I was already more than half way and honestly it wasn't a bad story, just didn't end as great as it started.

I still think many will enjoy it for what it is.