Rowena‘s review of There’s Something About St. Tropez by Elizabeth Adler.
Grade: 4 out of 5
Five international vacationers, strangers to each other, misfits running from their daily lives, are brought together at the same small seaside Hotel of Dreams, by a rental scam, an international art heist, passion, murder and a haunting.
When we got this book for review, I was mighty intrigued about it but I didn’t do the necessary research about this author and book because I’m dumb like that sometimes. Had I done the research, I would have known that there was a book that came before this one.
Ugh, oh well. It’s not the first time that I’ve read out of order but whatever.
Mac Reilly is a professional PI who is on a reality TV Show. He wants to take his girlfriend and sometimes partner, Sunny on a vacation. He wants to do something nice, get away for a little bit and have some alone time with her since they’ve both been pretty busy lately. He googles up some stuff and comes across a villa in St. Tropez that would be perfect for his plans. He makes the plans, tells Sunny about them and off they go to pack their bags. Before they can leave on their dream vacation, Mac gets called back to work and urges Sunny to go on without him. He’d meet up with her in St. Tropez in a couple of days.
Sunny decides to go on without him and what she comes across is not at all what she was expecting. They’ve been conned and she’s not a very happy camper but if you think that Sunny’s not happy, the other people that were conned as well are just as pissed off, if not a little more. Watching everything unfold was pretty entertaining. This book wasn’t what I was expecting at all but I’m glad that I read it. I’m pretty interested in reading the first book, One of Those Malibu Nights.
I really enjoyed getting to know both Mac and Sunny. Watching them together and then watching them apart made for some really entertaining scenes (and steamy romance too) and I’m just really glad that I got to know the both of them. Mac was a yummy hero, one that I would totally have a schoolgirl crush on and seeing him interact with Sunny and her devil of a dog, Tesoro kept me in fits of giggles throughout this book. Sunny was a good heroine as well. She’s smart, funny and just a whole lot of fun. I liked her and totally want to read more from her. Watching her and Mac try to help Bellinda was cool too.
My favorite part of reading this story was the descriptions Adler used to describe France. I have never been to France before but after reading this book I feel like I have. The descriptions were so rich that I could smell the Parisian food, I could feel the French breeze and I felt like I was right there in the thick of all of the action, trying to figure out what’s behind the art thefts and the lady who conned all of them. Watching the pack of strangers bond together of their shared madness was a good addition to the story. I enjoyed getting to know all of them.
Watching all of it unfold between the covers of this book made for some great reading. I would definitely recommend this book to those who are reading great mysteries that are of the light variety because even though there were lots of mysterious things going on, the book was still lighthearted. This is one of those stories that makes you smile all the while you’re trying to figure everything out. I enjoyed this one and think others will as well.
This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can buy it here.