Book Review - The Getaway by Emily March

 

The Getaway by Emily March is about a family trying to move forward after an incident has torn them apart. Genevieve Prentice was unexpectedly widowed at a young age. She has dedicated her life to raising and nurturing her four children. They were always the center of her world. Her kids are now all grown up and have other other obligations than spending the holidays with their  overbearing mother.

Genevieve is ready for a change and decides to put her beloved home on the market. She decides to head to Lake in the Clouds, Colorado with her sister. Together they plan to turn a rustic waterfront lodge into a B&B.  Genevieve and her sister plan to rehabilitate the old lodge to make it ready for guests. As they begin to work on the lodge, Genevieve is shocked when her older son, Jake, makes an unexpected visit to the lodge. 

 

Jake Prentice is known to be the dependable one in the family. He has stepped up as the father figure to take care of the other siblings after his father’s passing. He is good at his job as a consultant but he finds himself stressed out and constantly overworked. He decides to follow his mother’s path and quit his job, and use this new-found time to figure out what makes him happy.

 

This is the first time in a long time that Jake doesn’t have any demands or obligations he needs to work on. He decides to make the most of it. He likes being surrounded by the open sky and enjoying the fresh air while working with his hands. Jake feels that he can stay in limbo forever without having to make a decision on what he wants to do next. That is, until his former colleague Tess Crenshaw appears with an opportunity for a new job. It forces Jake to reassess who he is and what he wants to do.

 

I didn’t really care for this book. I thought it was very boring and it took a while to get to the main story. The author spent several pages describing Genevieve’s serving ware and other mundane things that didn’t really add any value to the story. I didn’t understand why the author felt it was important that the readers knew every single dish Genevieve owned. I didn’t like how the author hinted about a situation that tore the siblings apart but failed to go into detail. By the time we found out  what happened, it was mostly bits and pieces and by then, I had lost interest in the story.

 

I found it hard to relate to any of the characters. Other than Jake and his mother, most of the characters barely had any involvement in the story until the very end of the book. I felt like the author spent a lot of time with details that didn’t really mean much but barely any time with the meat of the story. This was the first book in the series and it didn’t really grab my attention enough that I would continue reading.