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Ivy Bauer has just lost her husband in a bicycle accident. Conrad Reed has just lost his wife in a car crash.
The two likely would never have met because they live very different lives in different parts of California. Ivy is a doctoral student at UC Davis and has invented an organic product that helps soil get the most out of water use. Conrad is a Hollywood producer who lives in Malibu with his 4-year-old stepson.
But Ivy’s best friend just so happens to work with Conrad, and she convinces her to get a change of scenery and work on the grounds of Conrad’s estate for a few months. The opportunity includes living in a cute little house behind the mansion.
So Ivy takes some leave from her research and teaching duties and focuses on just working in the dirt, trying to make Conrad’s water-slurping landscaping more environmentally friendly.
Over time, Ivy and Conrad get to know each other. Ivy gets to know the bright little boy, Hudson. And despite their being pretty different, they all come to get along well.
But as she senses a growing attraction to her employer, Ivy is hesitant. How can she look forward to a future with a new man, without her beloved husband? Conrad, for his part, worries a bit about how he can be a good father to a little boy who is grieving the loss of the mother they both loved.
Malibu Summer, with its bright, tropical cover and carefree-sounding title, seems on its face more like a breezy summer romance, but it’s really not a light read. And while it’s billed as an opposites-attract romance, it’s more a story about two people who are trying to even consider a path forward without their late spouses. The story works fairly well overall, but there were a few spots I thought it went a bit off the rails with some melodramatic events. They seemed to stand out against the more grounded feel of the overall narrative. In large part because of those plot points that took away from the general tone, I found it just so-so.
Rated: High (though just over the line from moderate). Profanity includes 8 uses of strong language, around 25 instances of moderate profanity, about 10 uses of mild language, and about a dozen instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes one brief sex scene with a few explicit details. Violent content includes references to a woman dying in a car crash, with one scene mentioning a man having to see bloody photos of the crash.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
