Cruising Toward Love

by Christi Barth

[Cocktails and Books]

When I first started reading this, I thought kept trying to figure out how we were going to be cruising towards love between Zoe and Nate. There was so much going on around the wedding that never happened and Zoe's hate of Nate and the townspeople's inability to leave Zoe's love life alone that I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to get to the cruise ship. Once we did get to the cruise ship, I realized this little vacation Nate and Zoe were on was going to be less than relaxing...which was sometimes entertaining and other times leaving me wishing they'd taken a shorter cruise!

The romance between Zoe and Nate was cute. High school sweethearts who's break up lead to misunderstandings, broken hearts and longing over the past ten years. Their inability to truly communicate with each other was a bit irritating at times. I mean, Nate blows into town and honestly thought Zoe would have any hard feelings about the way he left her. No matter how noble your reasons are, there is going to be fall out. It was as if these two thought it was better to ignore what happened or assume the other knows how the other feels rather than saying anything.

New friends, Callie and Reed have their own little romance, that was cute and had a little more meat to it (as it dealt with Reed's PTSD from his stint as an embedded photographer in Afghanistan). It was refreshing to see how Callie could see through Reed and help him deal with his PTSD and not feel as if he was a broken man.

The treasure hunt mystery was ok, but it lost it's believability at the end.

If you're looking for a quick weekend or beach read, this is definitely one for you.