The Forever Summer by Suzanne MacPherson
Things start off with a bang in when the heroine of this story, Lila Abbot, rushes to the scene of the death of Emily Ruth Griffin. Lila works at a local grocery store and Emily Ruth has just keeled over in the produce section, on her way to buy the makings for a Caesar salad for two. Emily’s ex-husband, Lucas Griffin happens upon the scene in record time, and immediately becomes a suspect in her death.
Lucas doesn’t like being the center of the town gossip, but he’s no stranger to it and just wants things to go away. Emily Ruth has other ideas and begins haunting him and the market where she died. She’s leaving clues in Cheez Whiz and Passion perfume and Lila decides to put the differences behind her (per Lucas) and help Emily Ruth pass on to the other side. Since she’s the local ghost whisperer in town.
Even though Lucas is innocent, and Lila as well, it seems Emily Ruth was murdered and the killer wants to set up Lucas for the murder and doesn’t stop when Lila accidentally gets in the way. These two people with little in common are thrown together and realize there’s a mutual attraction and the idea of a little bit more.
There are several very cute aspects of this story. Lila rescues Emily Ruth’s dog and cares for her. The supermarket cliches come off as cute rather than grating. Lila is a member of a local book club who help with a seanace. Lila’s relationships with her parents and best friend. But these are all just cute elements that don’t really tie together with the whole of the story.
Lila, though gutsy, gets annoying rather than endearing as the story moves on. She’s dealing with empty nest feelings since her daughter recently left home for Stanford. She had been a teenage mother and it’s the first time she’s been without her little girl. She’s built a life for herself in her hometown, even though there was a scandal when she got pregnant, but with her daughter gone she’s lost and starts acting like a teenager again. She and Lucas jump in the sack rather quickly to me, though I understand instant chemistry, it was rather out of place.
Lucas hasn’t had a good time of it himself. He was a rebellious youth with some brushes with the law, then after he marries Emily Ruth, she sucked all his money out of his trust fund. Then he caught her cheating with his brother, who she married for the money and for the family summer home on the coast. Lucas is a “summer boy”, or at least he was, and Emily Ruth, like Lila, was a “townie girl”. Which Lila has to get over.
By the end of the story, the mystery of who killed Emily Ruth is solved, but Lila commits something that makes her very TSTL and she loses credibility as a heroine, even if she is a plucky survivor with some sympathy votes for being a teenage mother.
The cute things don’t overcome Lila or the fact that the romance is rather rushed and maybe a little weak due to the short turn around time between when Lila and Lucas meet and actually start talking when they end up in the sack.
Grade: C-
