REVIEW and GIVEAWAY: An Endless Summer by C.J. Duggan

After a rebellious summer night that almost claimed her life, Amy Henderson – the Onslow publican’s only daughter – is sent away to suffer a fate far worse than any other punishment:

Boarding School.

Three years on, a now nineteen-year-old Amy returns to Onslow for the summer. What once was a cauldron of activity with live bands, hot meals and cold beers, the Onslow Hotel now lies dark, deserted and depressing. All fond childhood memories of loitering on the hotel stairs and eavesdropping on customers’ colourful conversations are in the distant past.

How had her dad let it come to this?

With the new threat of putting the Onslow up for sale, Amy reluctantly turns to a local tradesman for help: Sean Murphy, the very same Onslow boy who saved her life all those years ago. With his help and that of some old friends, the task is clear: spend the summer building the hotel back up to its former glory or lose it for good.

I also loved that it was in Australia, even though some of the lingo tripped me up a little, the cool thing about a Kindle is that it will look up words for you if you just highlight it.  So it was no trouble figuring out the new words.

This story takes place at a hotel/pub which is owned by the main character’s family.  Her dad’s having a mid-life crisis and feels the need to get away from world and spend time building his marriage back up.  Unfortunately, he leaves the hotel in the hands of a lazy worker and things fall to pieces.

Enter Amy, fresh off her gap year, not really having anything  to do but go check out the old family biz.

Needless to say, she is sadly disappointed when she finds all her childhood memories are now soiled from the filth covering just about every surface of the place.  She even falls through the second story balcony…

…and this is where hottie Sean Murphy enters.  He literally catches her mid-air and saves her life. Again. Yes, Sean Murphy has been a sort of opportunistic knight-in-shining-armor for Amy before. In fact the last stunt that required her to be saved ended up with her being shipped off to boarding school, hence the three year gap in her attendance at the hotel.

Even though Sean Murphy has a pretty long record of being a player who can pretty much get whoever he wants, he seems to want Amy.  But he’s not very forthcoming with his feelings.  He sends signals, but Amy is rather shy and reluctant to make a move, so their flirty dance goes on for most of the book.

I did not mind the fact that it took them a while to get together, it was most of the fun in my opinion.  And I loved watching Amy comes to terms with her life as the weeks progressed. She works hard, she rekindles old friendships, she sets things right, and she finally accepts that her childhood is over.  Even though she felt grown-up in the beginning of the book, she really needed the responsibility and freedom of this one last summer to finally grow into her adult self.