Pick Me

Pick Me by Erika Marks

Thea Dunn is having a rough day month year life.  After enduring the constant drama that was her baby sister's wedding the previous summer, Thea was hit with a difficult legal case that ended badly.  Then, a few months later, her long term boyfriend pulled the plug on their relationship.  Now, she has been chased out of her Charleston town house by termites.  Not much could get worse for her, until she realizes that her neighbor is the only person witness to the most humiliating night of her life fourteen years prior:  Calder Frye.

Calder never paid attention to his reputation in high school, so he didn't really notice that girls thought he was sexy or that the people of Magnolia Bay generally thought of him as a bad boy.  Instead he was too distracted by his not so great home life and wanting to get as far away from it as possible.  Now he's returned to town as an ER doctor and who should happen to be his new neighbor?  The girl who shared with him the best night of his life.  Could this be fate giving them a second chance?  Or are their personal lives simply too complicated...even for each other.

This story is sweet and refreshing.  Thea and her sisters are such a contradiction that the way they play off of each other is priceless.  Honestly, as I am a sucker for supporting characters, I would have loved to have had more meaningful dialog with the sisters.  I loved Connie and Jay from Bet the House and would have loved to seen more of them.  Yet, the story involving Pete and Marie was handled very well.  Ms. Marks is an expert and keeping things buttoned up until the end, so it came as no surprise that I was surprised when the source of the conflict in that story was revealed.

The main characters get a lot of interaction time in this.  Maybe because the story is short, but it felt like they spent more time with each other (or alone) than with anyone else.  The big shock was that I actually liked it.  Their interactions were both sincere and humorous.  There wasn't a lot of sex, but this story was written in a way that the tension speaks for itself and doesn't really need resolution to be satisfying.

Overall, this book and fun and enjoyable.  Very heartwarming and a comfy kind of familiar.

Ratings:

(1=unacceptable, 2=poor, 3=acceptable, 4=good, 5=excellent)

Continuity/Flow – 4

Sex – 4 

Language – 4

Storyline – 5

Overall – 4