Above All by Rebecca Brooks
Released: July 18, 2014
Contemporary Romance
Ellora’s Cave
Reviewed by Mandi
Most of this book takes place at a campground, and for some reason this pleases me. I enjoy camping/outdoorsy romances. Casey recently broke up with her long-term boyfriend, got the hell out of New York City and now is a manager at a camp ground in the Adirondack mountain area. The peace, calm, and hard work makes Casey’s blood sing. She is finally home, and is happy. Her ex made everything about him, and never let Casey be herself, so she cherishes her life now.
One evening, a group of people reuniting after college come to spend the weekend at the campsite. Included in this group is Ben, who is attending the Culinary Institute Academy, studying italian cooking. His real passion is baking, but he is trying to please his parents. Ben is about eight years younger than Casey, and while she notices the age difference, she can’t help but notice how attractive he is. Over this weekend, Ben starts making more and more excuses to leave his friends and hang out with Casey. These two fall hard and fast, but real life gets in the way for a while.
This book doesn’t have an abundance of conflict, but I was okay with that. It reads easy and I really liked Casey. The author does a nice job setting the campground scene – you can feel Casey swimming in the icy water early in the mornings, and busting her butt chopping wood later in the day. It really felt as if she belonged there. Besides running the campsite, she is also a very talented painter, and sketches and paints when she has time. This plays a bigger part later in the book which didn’t really fit in with the flow of the story. I won’t spoil too much, but I didn’t love how this side-storyline was brought it. It felt rushed and forced.
Back to the romance, Ben and Casey fall quick for each other – the problem though is that Ben is going to an intense school in New York City while Casey has responsibilities at the campground. This book is broke into seasons. We start in summer and have a few chapters. Then Ben leaves after his weekend and we jump ahead to fall. Then other things happen between them and we jump ahead to winter where we eventually end back in summer when the book comes to a close. I had a little bit of a hard time with this – we see Ben and Casey fall in lust, and have lots of hot sex, but the big time jumps takes away from building a consistent emotional connection with the characters. Ben leaves after the initial weekend and all of a sudden its weeks and weeks later. You can tell the reader Casey missed him but we weren’t present for when it all actually happened.
I give good points for a camping romance – there are a lot of good scenes, especially in the first part of the book. But I needed a smoother ride to the happy ever after.
Rating: C+
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