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Ten Beach Road (2011)

by Wendy Wax(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

042524086X (ISBN13: 9780425240861)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Berkley Trade

series

Ten Beach Road

review 1: Overall quite good with an amusing premise: Three women, complete strangers with nothing in common except that each of their entire life fortunes were wiped out by the same Ponzi schemer who is, in fact, the brother of one of them (unbeknownst to the other two). They are awarded a ramshackle beach mansion on the Florida Gulf coast; if they can fix it up and sell it, they can split the profits and recoup a sizable chunk of their losses. They move into the house and spend one sweltering summer doing the renovations, with assorted "help" if you can call it that: a hunky but irritating construction manager who is an old family friend of one woman (they have the requisite love-hate-lust relationship) as well as the same woman's long-estranged interior designer mother; the wanna... morebe filmmaker daughter (pregnant by a mega-movie star) and an MIA husband of another of the women; and an FBI agent monitoring the criminal's sister. The story moves along at a good pace, the characters are mostly well fleshed out, the dialog is snappy and often snarky, and there's a lot of humor. This is the first of a trilogy; as with all romantic trilogies we can predict where the next two will go--three women, hence each one gets a romantic entanglement in each.A few minor criticisms: The incessant, repetitive, pointless bickering between Avery and Chase--I know the author was trying to build the love-hate thing but it was way overdone. Second, it was completely illogical that Avery's mother would magically appear on their doorstep offering to help the daughter she had abandoned years ago, and even more illogical and incredible that Avery would let her stay, no matter how much expertise she could bring. And a petty annoyance: the characters spent pages and pages griping about the heat and "too bad the pool's not finished," with the darn Gulf of Mexico literally at their back door, and yet no one ever swam in it! Was there a point to that absurdity? Only noticable because of the repeated references to it.I listened to the audiobook which was fair. The reader did a good job with the narration and the women's voices. However, all the men had pretty much the same voice--they all sounded like teenage boys. She needs to develop more deep ranges for this. Otherwise it was mostly an enjoyable listen.
review 2: I really enjoyed this book as three women from different backgrounds are forced to work together when under normal circumstances they never would have met. Madeline is a stay at home mom who is used to managing her family even though the children are college age. Avery is an architect who wants to be taken seriously for her brain and not because of her shape. Nicole is a guru matchmaker for the wealthy. The author keeps you going as you follow their progress renovating a mansion and establishing friendships. Makes a great beach read. And,the story continues in Ocean Beach. less

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