Review: Very shallow "romance" novel, quick read, technical issues **SPOILER ALERT** (at the end)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2014
This book is 2 1/2 stars, but I just can't quite round this book up to three stars because that's what I would give most of the author's other books, with one exception.  (Looking at my past reviews, I see that I should have assigned "Wishful Kisses" just one star instead of two, because this book was definitely better, however still flawed.)  Anyway, I do usually enjoy them - they are light, easy romance stories. Quick reads.But this book is lacking as some of the other reviews indicate. It's missing character development and doesn't build any romantic chemistry between the two main characters.  Everything is too perfect and sweet.Except the part at the very beginning (so I don't consider this a spoiler) when Sam's sailing partner is injured in a diving accident, possibly permanently, and this is supposedly going to end her sailing career.  For the record, I have a good friend who happens to be a quadriplegic and won a silver medal in London.  Nobody would ever tell her that her sailing career is over.  Her crew for the paralympics is blind, and he's out cruising with his wife on their sailboat as I type this.And there are NO ROPES on a sailboat.  Ever.  There are LINES.**SPOILERS BELOW** - getting on soapbox nowThere is a lot of sailing and racing, and there are many, many technical mistakes with this.Firstly, Robbie buys her a J111?  What?  He buys her a $200-300K boat and she accepts it on the spot?  (Actually more $$$ - I'm sure he would buy her a brand-new boat and I'm listing prices for used boats in any condition.)  When they barely know each other?  (see note above about the book not building their relationship).And a J111 is totally inappropriate for a someone considering an Olympic campaign (it's very easy to look up which boats are sailed in the Olympics - and there's only one keelboat which is sailed with three women).  Yes, you CAN sail it double-handed, but you RACE it competitively with many more crew.  Double-handed means a dinghy, such as a 420 or 470.  I'm not even going to figure out how he manages to get a 36' boat from New York to a Caribbean island in a matter of days.And why do they use a "sea anchor" on the boat?  (try wikipedia to find out what a sea anchor is)  You would never get off your boat unless it was properly anchored, using a 25-35 pound anchor for that size boat, which you wouldn't "toss" in. Urgh.The real "Champion of Champions" race is a buoy race (as all Olympic sailing is as well as most one-design or match racing) not a distance race, and everyone sails identical boats that are provided.  There is a double-handed race to Mackinac, and the record is just under 24 hours, set by a 77' yacht - there is NO WAY a 36' monohull boat could come close to that.  It's great race, but it's not a race that's going to win sponsorship for a buoy racer.  (This is fiction - the author should have made up a race.)And then there's the storm.  Geesh this is stupid.  When they fail to reef the main BEFORE the wind picks up, knowing that it's just going to get stronger.  Any decent sailor knows that the boat will sail better, more balanced, and FASTER with less sail area up than too much.  And how did Robbie injure his arm?  I couldn't figure it out exactly, because he better not have wrapped his hand around the sheet - every decent sailor knows to NEVER do that.  I will allow the stupidity in the storm scenario because this is fiction and the novel needed to build some tension somewhere.Off the soapbox now.