Review: Stranger on the Shore

 

Title: Stranger on the Shore

Author: Roseanne Dowell

Publisher: Museitup Publishing

Publication Date: March 2011

ISBN: 978-1-926931-39-5

Genre: Romance

Length: Short Story

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Rating (1-5):  3.5/5 Martinis

Heat Level: Vanilla Martini(Sweet)

Blurb:

Author, Jordan Blake lives in a house along Lake Erie. She’s a recluse and likes it that way. No interruptions while she’s writing. At least not until that day in October when an early lake storm brews up. Not that she minds snowstorms. Far from it. She loves them. While she’s on her deck securing chair cushions and chairs, something along the rocky shoreline catches her eye. A body? Hard to tell from where she stood. Not being one to ignore someone in need, she rushes across the yard. It’s a body all right–a male’s body. Thank God he was alive, but unfortunately unconscious. After much pulling, rolling and pushing, Jordan manages to get him to her house and finally inside.

Both of them are soaked down to their skin. Jordan can’t leave him in his wet clothes, so sets about removing them. The stranger sparks something in her she thought was long dead.  Trying to ignore her feelings, she dresses him in an old bathrobe from her ex-husband. Unfortunately when he comes to, the attraction grows.  Jordan tries to ignore what she feels toward the stranger, but his kisses awaken something in her.  Something she’d rather wasn’t aroused. To make matters worse, the stranger doesn’t have any idea who he is.  For all she knows he might be a mass murderer.

Review:

In Ms. Dowell’s Stranger on the Shore, she offers readers a quick and skillfully written romance. While the hero is supposed to have amnesia, it is written in a way that proves to be effective, and dare I say, not a trope. The heroine, Jordan is portrayed in a way that gives her depth beyond being a lonely writer taking in a man she doesn’t quite trust. My only complaint is that it is too short. I have the feeling that if the story had been a bit longer, the reader would’ve had the opportunity to delve further into these two character’s respective pasts and seen a more progressive movement into a relationship. Beyond that, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

(*Book provided by author for an honest review)