Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Review: One Season of Sunshine by Julia London


Title: One Season of Sunshine
Author: Julia London
Available: Now
Number of Pages: 392
Reading Level: Adult


3 out of 5 Stars








Description from Goodreads:


Should some questions be left unanswered? 

Adopted as an infant, Jane Aaron longs to know the identity of her birth mother and why she gave her up. Her only clue is the name of the small Texas town where she was born, so she’s come to Cedar Springs for answers. 

Handsome ad executive Asher Price lost his wife, the beautiful, mysterious Susanna, in a terrible car crash eighteen months ago. When he hires Jane as the nanny for his two children, sparks fly. Jane finds herself falling in love with both Asher and his children, but begins to suspect that Susanna was not the perfect mother and wife the family portrays her to have been. 

As Jane gets closer and closer to finding out the truth about both her own and Susanna’s past, devastating secrets begin to emerge that may be more than anyone can bear. Will the truth bring Jane and Asher closer together or tear them apart forever? 


My thoughts:


Jane Aaron moves to Cedar Springs, Texas in search of her birth mother. Taking a leave of absence from her job as a school teacher, Jane needs to find a job to help make ends meet. After a quick, and impersonal interview she is hired as a nanny by a very wealthy widow. Jane and her new boss, Asher, clash from day one. Lucky for Jane he finds her outspokenness attractive, and doesn’t fire her. As the relationship between Asher and Jane begins to evolve into an intense attraction, they find several obstacles standing in their way. 


This was a good story, but the characters left much to be desired. Jane came off as whiny and selfish the majority of the time. With her character’s age, and the amount of education she had I found her too immature to really fit the part. Asher was a bit better, but he still ranked low on my interesting scale. With that said, the plot and pace of the story was good. I also really loved what the resolution entailed, and never saw it coming. 


I don’t usually comment on the covers of the books I review, but I felt the need to with this one. I found the cover of this one very misleading. I know the cover isn’t always a perfect representation of the characters, but this one makes me think this story is about a young girl and her grandmother. Not a 20 something searching for the woman who gave her up for adoption.


While overall I did enjoy this one, I  never felt any connection to the characters or sympathy when it came to their troubles. A nice solid story, but the lack of realistic characters caused this one to be flawed in my opinion. Still a solid 3 stars considering the pace was enough to keep me reading. I’m usually a character driven reader, and find it difficult to finish books with characters I don’t enjoy. That was not the case with this one as the plot was enough to hold my interest.



*Received from the publisher in exchange for my review.

2 comments:

  1. This sounds like a good read, but it's always hard when the characters don't carry their own weight in the story. Great review :)

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  2. I think you are totally right with the cover. It does makes me think of something other than the actual story in the book. Its not a very good representation of it. Great review! It does not sounds great, but just okay. Maybe for a lazy sunday afternoon.

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