A beach read with some grip.
I love a good beach read, but I don't like them syrupy sweet with all the stereotypical southern symbols and characters. Beauty queens and sweet tea get old after a while, and that is why I love Mary Kay Andrews. Her novels are funny but also intriguing; light, but not condescending.
She's one that I've been loyal to since I read Savannah Blues back in 2002. I've loved them all, but my two favorites are Hissy Fit and The High Tide Club.
I think Sunset Beach will be another favorite.
Nothing is going right for Drue Campbell, her mother has just died, she is out of a job, and there is nothing hopeful on the horizon. Then her father, Brice Campbell, a cheesy personal injury attorney, shows up unannounced at her mother's funeral after a twenty-year hiatus from family life. To make matters worse, he is married to Drue's middle school "friend" Wendy, who is also his office manager.
Her father offers her a job and she learns she's inherited her grandparents' beach bungalow on Sunset Beach. The only problem with that is that working for her father means working with Wendy, and the beach bungalow is in desperate need of repairs. So while it's not the perfect scenario, it does provide her a job and a place to live, and I always say a run-down house on the beach is better than a mansion on Main Street any day.
Drue has her hands full, and then there is a suspicious death at a nearby beach resort that exposes possible corruption at her father's law firm. That's when she becomes a self-appointed investigator and gets involved with a case that could implicate her father.
Nothing is ever as it seems with a Mary Kay Andrews novel, and there are all sorts of hints that there is a big twist at the end. I promise you'll enjoy this one. MKA has never let me down.
