Summer Love [Mass Market Paperback]

"Summer Love" is a decent compilation of stories by four established authors. All four manage the novella form well, with believable and appealing characters and good writing.

Janelle Taylor is the editor and featured writer in this compilation with her story "Straight from the Heart." As is often the case with these compilations, her story ends up the weakest. Kim is stranded in a mountain cabin with Stephen, to whom she is attracted. Unfortunately, Stephen's law firm represented her lying husband in her divorce and she still holds onto that resentment. Kim is a decent character, although she seems overly bitter towards Stephen. The hero Stephen is OK, but the story doesn't give much of a sense of him, and their "romance" isn't well-developed within the confines of the novella form. Still, it's a sweet little love story.

"Summer Fantasy" by Jill Marie Landis is one of the better stories in this group. The character of Kylee is especially strong, and the romance between the two is well-developed and believable. A good story with an ending I bought into.

Stella Cameron is a talented author, and the plot of "Early in the Morning" is an interesting one, as it involves aliens seeking humans as sex therapists. As always, Cameron handles her erotic scenes very well, and her writing is very distinctive. This story also works well in the novella format. I'm not sure I always bought into this story, but Cameron's work is always interesting if nothing else.

Anne Stuart's "Sultry" is a decent story. The characters were appealing and the romance believable. The story itself is nothing distinctive or special, but it's a decent addition to this compilation.

All in all, this is an enjoyable compilation, with good writing and charming characters. While some stories are weaker than others, Landis's strong contribution and Cameron's distinctive writing style give it an edge over other similar compilations.

** "Straight from the Heart" by Janelle Taylor.

O. M. G. If this were a play, I'd say the actors were chewing the scenery. Horribly overdone. It's an okay premise--the hero's law firm represented the heroine's ex-husband in a custody battle, and a mutual friend sets them up to be stranded in a cabin together. But the story goes downhill from there. Every reaction is exaggerated--for example, at one point the hero throws his head back and laughs... at something mildly amusing. And what was up with the "wheat bread"? Am I missing something? They've got bread, and it's mentioned multiple times, and there's only one kind of bread, but every time it's mentioned it's always "wheat bread." Really started to drive me nuts. We won't mention the exclamation marks.

*** "Summer Fantasy" by Jill Marie Landis.

TV screenwriter's agent sends her to Kauai to relax and get over writer's block. The handsome Hawaiian B&B owner is the hero. The descriptions were very nice. I saw the "twist" coming from the first assumption the heroine made about the hero. Too much authorial intrusion took away from the story. And the heroine... first, she's a the pinnacle of her profession at age 25. I thought we'd given that up in the 80s. And then she's all hot for the hero, so she's hostile toward him, comes on to him and then gets mad at him for responding.

* "Early in the Morning" by Stella Cameron.

WTF moment #1: we have a couple who's on the eve of getting married, and they've--or rather she's--just now decided they ought to discuss sex.
WTF moment #2: so he repeatedly changes the subject, avoids the question, and finally accuses her of being sex-obsessed.
WTF moment #3: she doesn't actually dump his sorry butt. I have zero problem with a couple deciding to wait until marriage for sex. But I do think it's something they would/should discuss before, you know, the night before the wedding. And his reaction? That really doesn't bode well for a happy marriage.
WTF moment #4: we get the reason for his reluctance--his ex-wife told him he wasn't any good in bed. Isn't that pretty much standard? Don't an awful lot of divorcing people accuse their exes of being bad in bed?
WTF moment #5: the aliens show up. And....

I can't go on. It gets worse from there, if you can believe it. It's a complete mess. What the aliens want, how they communicate, how the couple plans to get away, and then how things change at the end--none of it makes any sense. Okay, I've got to add one last WTF moment because I just can't believe it:
WTF moment # whatever: they don't want to have actual sex where the aliens can observe them. BUT they have no problem with getting completely naked and having oral sex with the aliens watching.

***** "Sultry" by Anne Stuart.

This is why I bought the book. And it made it worth it. Stuart's an exceptional author. From the first page, I felt myself relax and sink into the story of a saloon owner and the town's new sheriff. She packed a ton of story into a novella length, and I still didn't feel rushed or like things were left out. Emotional, lush, descriptive, even suspenseful. She makes it look so easy. Quite possibly, the contrast between this story and the others in the anthology account for a half a star here, but it deserves it for being stuck in a book with duds.

This is my favorite story by her. She used Hawaiian words and described the setting so well it brought back great memories of my trips to Kauai. The characters were magic and I love the description of Rick Pau-he's my dream guy!