This was a great book to follow up on the Mure series. I read book 1, but had not had time to go through and read the next book in the series until now. I liked this book, didn’t love it. I think it clearly shows the issues between Flora and Joel and how unhealthy their relationship was and honestly I really thought the whole thing got tied up way too neatly. I assume that will come back to bite them in the next book. But the clear star of this book was Saif. We get to follow him and all of things he had to do to get his children back and get them back to Mure. The biggest issue why I could not give this book 5 stars though was the whole plot with Colton. I am sorry, I ended up disliking the character a lot for what he did and I just in general hated the entire thing. The book has a nice rhythm to it, but certain parts felt a bit hollow. I think when Joel came back to Mure the flow of the book just got kind of hazy at that point. I just lost interest in him. And I don’t think Colgan meant to do this, but Joel’s mental health seemed to be just hey get some rest, eat some food, etc. and not really getting into what was going on there. It still felt even at the end that Flora and Joel were not on equal footing.
“The Endless Beach” follows Flora who is thrilled that she is finally with her former boss, Joel. They are on Mure enjoying the winter days/nights with each other. Only one fly in the ointment is that Joel is constantly being flown all over the place since he is a lawyer for the rich Colton. Joel doesn’t share much of himself with Flora and all they tend to do is sleep together. Joel needs Flora to keep him centered and happy, but she needs more. After a disastrous trip to surprise Joel in New York (sorry I was on his side on that one) the twosome seem to drift apart. Along with that there is a secret that seems to have come between Colton and Joel. And Saif finally hears news of his children and tries his best to keep things quiet, but the residents of Mure have no qualms about butting in.
Flora reminds me a bit of other characters that Colgan has written. I just got bored by the whole Charlie/Jan thing. It was dumb. You did not date. You kissed him. The end. I was over it and started to hate to see those names at all. But Flora deciding she needed more than what Joel was ready to give her I thought was good. Too often we have romance novels where you have a woman just get crapped on by the hero, but they say they love you and everything is okay. I still don’t know if this is a relationship to be rooting for.
I loved, loved, love Saif’s character and the whole star-crossed love aspect of his relationship with Lorna. His plot saved this book for me.
I don’t want to spoil, but the other plot point…sigh.
The writing was very detailed and the flow was really good throughout the book.
The setting of Mure always feels magical and otherwordly and it definitely feels that way again at times.
The ending though. Sigh. There’s so much tension and I just don’t know if I want to read the next book or not.