BUNGALOW NIGHTS: A REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED 
BUNGALOW NIGHTS

A Beach House No. 9 Novel

BY CHRISTIE RIDGWAY

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Return to USA TODAY bestselling author Christie Ridgway's Crescent Cove, California, where the magic of summer can last forever…

Combat medic Vance Smith made a promise to a fallen officer: to treat the man's young daughter to an idyllic vacation at Beach House No. 9. One month, some sun and surf, a "helmet list" of activities to check off and Vance will move on. But the "little girl" he's expecting turns out to be a full-grown woman. With silky hair, big brown eyes and smelling sweetly of the cupcakes she makes for her mobile bakery, Layla Parker is irresistible. And Vance shouldn't lay a finger on her. Honor—and one heck of a scarred heart—says so.

To Layla, Vance is a hero who was injured trying to save her father's life. She intends to spend their month of lazy days and warm nights taking very good care of the gorgeous soldier—inside and out…. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Christie Ridgway is a California native and author of over forty contemporary romances.  A five-time RITA finalist and USA Today bestselling author, she writes sexy, emotional reads starring determined heroines and the men who can’t help but love them.  Married to her college sweetheart, Christie lives in Southern California in a house filled with boys and pets.  She writes as an escape from sports equipment, football on TV, and dog hair. 

AN EXCERPT FROM BUNGALOW NIGHTS:

Vance Smith had faced down Taliban bullets with more cool than he felt sitting on the beachside restaurant's open-air deck. He was here to meet his companion for the next month, and not that he'd admit it to anyone, but there was an undeniable film of sweat on both palms—sweat he couldn't even swipe against his jeans thanks to the fiberglass cast that bound one wrist and the soft brace that was fastened around the other.

Sometime during his short hospital stay, a dumb-ass private with Picasso pretensions had taken a Sharpie to the pristine polymer wrapping on his left arm and drawn a big-busted, half-naked warrior princess, detailed enough that Vance had been forced to beg his cousin Baxter this morning for some help in disguising the X-rated image. He was meeting an impressionable young person, after all.

Grimacing, Vance glanced down at his cousin's solution, then back at Baxter himself, who was sitting across the table, nursing a club soda. "Really?" he said to the other man, not bothering to blunt the edge to his voice. "A tat sleeve? That's the best you could come up with?"

Baxter blinked. In their youth, people had mistaken the two of them for twins and they still had the same blond hair and blue eyes. But while Vance sported a soldier's barber cut and casual clothes, his one-yearyounger cousin had a salon style and looked the epitome of his nickname, All Business Baxter, in a conservative suit and tie. His gaze dropped to the nylon fabric stretched over Vance's cast. "I say it's inspired. And I could have made a worse choice, you know. As it is, you almost blend in."

Vance grunted. He supposed Bax was right. The sleeve's design wasn't demonic, or worse, straight out of a prison documentary. Instead, the images were intricate and colorful weavings of tribal signs, tropical flora and curling waves. Nothing to scare off a child.

"Snuggle up closer with Teddy if you're still worried," Baxter advised.   To finish reading this excerpt, visit the publisher's website HERE. 

MY THOUGHTS/REVIEW OF BUNGALOW NIGHTS:

BUNGALOW NIGHTS is the next installment in author Christie Ridgway’s “Beach House” series and I think I liked it better than the first. It seemed to have more substance to it. There actually are two romances going on with the main one being that of Layla Parker and Vance Smith. Vance is a combat medic who was caring for Layla’s father, Colonel Samuel Parker, as he was dying while deployed overseas. Colonel Parker shows Vance a picture of his beloved daughter, Layla, and asks Vance to act as a escort to her at Beach House No. 9 in Crescent Cove so she would feel a connection to her father. Of course, Vance agrees to be a guide for the girl not realizing that the photograph is of Layla as a child, and she is now a grown woman!

Layla runs a bakery truck and when Vance returns home to recuperate, they meet and the story goes from the initial chemistry to a developing love affair. I thought it was a good plot but their romance sure did seem to take forever to actually take off. The side story for Vance was also interesting as he is thought of as a failure by his father because he didn’t want to stay home from the service and run the family avocado farm. There was a great deal of emotion in that story line and I found it sad that his family treated Vance the way that they did.

The secondary characters’ romance of Addy and Baxter was compelling in that Addy had a one-night stand with Baxter years ago. Baxter is Vance’s cousin so that is one way they all intertwine. When Addy returns to town, she faces the dilemma of seeing Baxter after all these years. Their storyline was really interesting and also moved a lot faster than that of Vance and Layla. 

Christie Ridgway does a nice job of fleshing out the characters as well as defining the setting so readers can create a mental image of where the story all takes place. This is certainly a perfect beach read and one that just might make you hunt up some of Ridgway’s other novels as well. 

SOME OTHER BOOKS BY CHRISTIE RIDGWAY:

                  

                     

                    

                     

                        

 

GIVEAWAY

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CHRISTIE RIDGWAY'S BUNGALOW NIGHTS 
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