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Nowhere But Here (2014)

by Renée Carlino(Favorite Author)

3.56 of 5 Votes: 8

ISBN

1476763976 (ISBN13: 9781476763972)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Atria Books

review 1: Sweet novel, but not as good as "Sweet Thing". Not a big fan of falling in love after only four days plot either. Yes, I know, considering that more than HALF of the books I read are about love at first sight. But I expected differently from Carlino. And I think I would've been THRILLED if I found out my man was a secret billionaire. I mean, come on. There is only so much modesty I can take here. Hahahaha. Plus, was the secret identity REALLY necessary? Really, what's the point? The missing daddy plot and the "take care of each other" dreams were corny as hell, but I'll take it. It did get reallllly draggy towards the end though. And what's up with that mugging scene? Did that really have to happen? Cut it short, Renee! But as usual, love her song choice, "Dragon" by The A... moremazing and the karaoke standoff "Tramp" by Otis Redding. Sexy, very sexy. And although it was nice to meet our old friends Mia and Ryan from "Sweet Thing", I wish I didn't have to read about their beautiful perfect children. That includes Kate and Jamie's too. Really now, I don't care about your kids. You leave that up to the readers!
review 2: I should start off by saying that Renee Carlino is one of those authors that has a gift for writing beautiful stories that pull me right into the scenery. She creates relationships that pop out of the page, keeping me reading long into the night to see these characters find their happily ever after endings. I have enjoyed all of the books she has written. This book is no different. I took any spare moment I could find so that I could steal a moment to read this book, and I flew right through it. It was a beautiful love story. But there is a "however" to attach to this review ...However, I can only give this story three stars. I liked it. I did. But there were parts of the plot that required me to suspend reality a bit. If I just didn't think too hard about time frames and character reactions too much I could get lost in the story and simply enjoy it. But I couldn't do that. There were too many instances in this novel where I stopped to think, "These people are insane." If my friend or my child were making similar choices I would have a hard time supporting that. I would have to pull them aside and say, "Maybe you should give this a little more time, don't you think?" For example ...Kate heads to Napa to interview the reclusive genius RJ Lawson who left his billion dollar high tech company in order to hole away on a vineyard and produce award winning wines. While there she meets Jamie, the resident jack of all trades, and they hit it off. Immediately. Within four days she has decided that she is in love with the guy, and it turns out that he is in love with her too. Four days! Granted, these are four days packed with amazing Napa valley vineyard experiences, but still ... four days. For goodness sake, she doesn't even know his last name ... and that's going to prove to be a big deal. Do they talk during these four days? A little ... a very little. There is obvious chemistry. There is an obvious intellectual connection. It is obvious that these two have great potential. But during these four days they barely even scratch the surface when it comes to getting to know each other. Jamie tells her NOTHING about who he is. Any time some difficult subject might arise that makes Kate uncomfortable, she simply changes the subject and says she doesn't want to talk about it. And yet they are in love forever and ever and ever. This is not normal. This is not healthy. I get the connection, but you really need to get to know each other before you start throwing around the L word. Maybe at a different time in my life this wouldn't bother me, but as I read this story it really, really did.I figured out the big plot twist at the very beginning. That didn't ruin the twist at all. In fact, it might have made reading the events in Napa even more interesting. Without spoiling anything ... Kate ends up leaving California and returning to Chicago without Jamie. Her reaction at the vineyard (before the big plot twist even is revealed) was so incredibly over the top and ridiculous that it almost made me hate her. I get that she is afraid to be hurt. I get it. That might be a good reason not to "fall in love" after only knowing a guy for a few days. But it didn't warrant her crazy reaction when she thought he might have left her. You'd think you could at least ask around a bit before coming to conclusions. Her leaving along with the big plot reveal leads to several chapters of mopey Kate. Oh how I hated these chapters! She was being so ridiculous. Her moods were mercurial, going from madly in love to borderline hatred to deep depression to confusion. She was all over the place. If there was ever a girl that needed to take things slow, it was Kate. Kate is simply a mess for much of this book. From the very beginning it is obvious that her definition of a relationship is skewed. Whatever thing was going on with her "boyfriend" Stephen ... it was not a true relationship, and yet somehow she labels him as her boyfriend. It was sad. She just needed some stability in her relationships, something she hasn't ever really enjoyed. I would have loved a more slow build to her finding herself comfortable in a good, solid relationship. Her relationship with Jamie was just too up and down for me to feel that slow build.My absolute favorite part of this book was the beginning chapters with Jamie and Kate in Napa Valley. The scenery was beautiful, and the descriptions of the wine making process were interesting. I wish that this book had spent more time really developing the connection between Jamie and Kate in this setting. Sure, they have this great physical connection to each other, but that is not what creates a deep and abiding love. It is the mental and emotional connections that combine with the physical connections that matter, and too little time was spent building those emotional connections. This was an insta-love story, and I think that hurt the overall novel a bit. Jamie was interesting. Kate was interesting. Seeing these two discover those truths about each other on the page would have been beautiful, but instead they just met and it was like magic ... true love discovered. Overall, I enjoyed this story. It kept me interested. I loved the Happily Ever After. I loved how these two characters were when they were together. But too little time spent on developing the relationships and spastic reactions by Kate kept me from loving it. Still, I liked it. Three stars. less

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