Summer Wine by Helen Ravell
Book Title : Summer Wine
Author : Helen Ravell
Publisher : Desert Breeze Publishing
Genre : Contemporary Romance
Publication Date : May 2006
ISBN : 978-1-936000-04-3
Pages : 108
Series : n/a
Category : Sophisticated
Type : e-book
Reviewer : Lindsay Townsend
5 Wings
Claire Graham is a tour guide at Australian Exclusive Gourmet Tours, which showcases the best of Australia’s culinary delights. She loves her job, but sometimes the clients can be annoying and her first meeting with Sam Bennett is a little fraught due to a misunderstanding. However, their meeting does not remain fraught. Sam is polite, handsome and devastatingly attractive and the chemistry between them is explosive. When he asks her out, Claire is delighted to accept.
Claire is lovely and loving and as I read Summer Wine I could utterly identify with her feelings and situation. Her relationship with Sam is passionate and tender and Helen Ravell shows in her elegant, expressive prose the stresses of a modern relationship, in which couples are often apart due to work. Claire does also have her faults, however. She is slightly judgemental, particularly when it comes to rich people, whom she assumes must be amoral and unpleasant. Her attitude makes some of the less than honest choices Sam takes more understandable, although the revelation that he is rich is a major stress factor in their relationship when he finally tells Claire who he really is.
When she learns everything, Claire is appalled at his lack of trust in her. And how will Sam’s mother greet her when they finally meet? Will Sam’s rich family and friends accept her? Will Sam also learn that he has to include Claire in decisions?
When, as newly-weds, Claire and Sam go to America and Claire meets Sam’s cold, intimidating mother, the story’s tensions increase. Will Sam and Claire’s love survive such tests?
I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend Summer Wine.
Tags: crr reviews, helen ravell, summer wine
