Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Castaway Cove by JoAnn Ross



They’ve never met. But they’re destined for each other…
 
Single dad Mac Culhane has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous war zones, but now he and his young daughter have settled in Shelter Bay, where he’s become the late-night DJ for the local radio station. The last thing he expects is to connect over the airwaves with a caller. . .
 
 After a painful divorce, Annie Shepherd opened up a scrapbook store in town and started volunteering with local senior citizens. Although she loves her work, dreams of the family she longs for keep her up late, listening to Mac Culhane’s voice on the radio.
 
 When Mac and Annie finally meet in person, the attraction between them is instantaneous. But Annie isn’t ready to lay her heart on the line, and neither is Mac. Fortunately, no one in Shelter Bay is about to let a perfect match escape the magic of true love. . .
Title: Castaway Cove | Series: Shelter Bay #6 | Author: JoAnn Ross | Publisher: Signet |Genre: Contemporary Romance | Source: | Rating: 3.5

Armed Forces Network deejay Mac Culhane’s last tour in Afghanistan ended when a suicide bomber nearly killed him. When he returns home, he finds that his wife is filing for divorce and leaving him with their six-year-old daughter, Emma so he decides to move home to Shelter Bay and accept the midnight position at the local radio station.
 
Annie Shepherd decided to move back to Shelter Bay after her divorce. She’s opened a scrapbook store so that she can help others record the memories that she, a child constantly in the foster system, never had.
 
When she calls into the radio station late at night and finds herself connecting with Midnight Mac, she never images that he was the jerk she ran into at the nursing home. Soon they find themselves growing closer together as they work out their past issues.
 
Okay, so this one was a little slow to start. Having come into a well-established series at the end, I was expecting and hoping for a bit of a catch up, but the start of the book verged on being an info dump and I ended up skimming the through several of the early chapters.
 
Mac is struggling with a lot of things—his grandfather’s Alzheimer’s, learning how to be a single father—although surprisingly, his injury and near death experience in Afghanistan never really came up.
 
Annie has some emotional scars because of her failed marriage and divorce. She also has issues because she was constantly going from one foster home to the other. So when Mac pops up in her life, she’s a bit hesitant to start a relationship with a single father.  
 
I really liked Mac and Annie together although the book was a hundred and some pages in before they actually got some page time, which kind of drove me batty.  
 
The secondary characters were interesting and I was really glad that I was able to get a glimpse of the residents of Shelter Bay, although if it would have been narrowed down a touch to a handful, I think it would have improved the flow.
 
The pacing of this book ebbed and flowed. As I said, the start of the book was a little slow going and a few bits in the middle could have been a little quicker, but once Mac and Annie finally had some page time, the book picked up and held my interest.
 
Overall, I liked the book. The romance was sweet, if a bit slow to start, the characters were engaging, and there was a touch of paranormal in the form of a ghost. What I really loved about this book was the sense of place. I truly felt as though I was walking down the streets of Shelter Bay.



Have you read a Shelter Bay Novel?

6 comments:

Lanies Book Thoughts said...

I havent heard of this series but overall it looks like it'd be a good contemporary read. I dont think I could wait a hundred pages, I dont have that much patience! Lol. That is pretty odd that the book mentions he had a seriously hard time in war but it doesnt come up in depth. I would think not mentioning it at all would be better than not eventually having that be an important part of the story.

Angela @ Simply Angela said...

Yeah, 100 pages was way too long to wait. I think the author chose the injured in Afghanistan angle as reason for Mac to return to Shelter Bay, but she should have followed through more than she did. It was a cute little book, but the cast needed to be narrowed down so that Mac and Annie could have had more page time. I never heard about this series either until the book arrived in the post.

Lanies Book Thoughts said...

You seem to keep getting this shorter stories with a huge cast in them. I wonder if your next few reads will end up like this as well!

Angela @ Simply Angela said...

That's what I've been wondering. I like it when secondary characters are introduced, Wedding Bells in Christmas did it brilliantly, but they need to even them out and focus on the main characters.

Sophia Rose said...

I like the premise and I think I have an earlier book in the series on my pile. So many still to read....

Glad to know that it has a slow start and doesn't develop all the aspects.

Angela @ Simply Angela said...

I know all about the TBR pile...or in my case, it's more like a TBR mountain. I would eventually like to check out the rest of the series, but it's going to be awhile before I can do that. I just hope they're quicker to start.