Heidi Hart

I am almost pathologically unable to leave a series unfinished. If I hate the first book, I can walk away, but once I've read two or more, I feel compelled to close out the series even when I'm just not that in to it. That's why I read Sarah Morgan's Suddenly Last Summer, a summertime contemporary sandwiched between the Christmas-themed Sleigh Bells in the Snow, which I read last December and rated 2.5 stars, and Maybe This Christmas, which I read last week and rated 3.5 stars. In reading Maybe This Christmas, I discovered that I'd missed this book, and had to go back and close out the trilogy even though none of the three books really stood out from the crowd.

Suddenly Last Summer is the story of Sean O'Neil, an orthopedic surgeon whose love of career leaves no time for relationships, and Elise Somebody, the chef at the O'Neil family resort. Elise is also a workaholic, but her resistance to relationships has more to do with her abusive ex-husband than with her work schedule. Sean and Elise have steamy chemistry, but neither wants anything more than sex. When each starts to develop Feelings, they both get uncomfortable and things get messy.

I'm not a fan of I-don't-want-to-love-you-because-REASONS stories. You know what I mean: where the conflict between the lovers is entirely in the characters' heads and not based on any real obstacle. This is such a story. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. I finished the series.

That is all.