Lands End by Jackie D.

Lands End
by Jackie D.
Pages: 224
Date: September 13 2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Series: None

Review
Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0
Read: August 20 to 21 2016

*I received this book from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books in return for a fair review.*

Seven years ago the Michaels family had a nine year old daughter, a great successful restaurant, Lands End, on the tip of a peninsula in San Francisco, and a daughter in college (around the age of 20). The college aged daughter, Lena, was two years into her collegiate plans – get a Social Services degree, then Masters in that, then help the less fortunate. That all changed in something like a split second, which does happen, even if it sounds like a cliché.

One night, on the 23rd of October, someone came by that Lands End restaurant and shot three people – Papa, Mama, and daughter (Laura) Michaels. Papa and Mama died, Laura did not. Everyone’s life was pushed onto a new trajectory – Lena came home from college took over management of the restaurant – more importantly, took over the hard task of being sister-mother to Laura.

The book opens seven years later – Laura is 16 and rebellious. She gets herself into unfortunate circumstances, like being near a much older man with two other underage girls. That much older man comes with a certain insurance against bad publicity, for he is a star football player for the San Francisco Miners and they have a contract with a publicity company to try to help in situations like this one here.

This leads me to one Amy Kline. The description is slightly misleading for this book. Amy Kline is not in fact a public relations hotshot for the San Francisco Miners football team, at least not the way I initially read that when I was looking over books. For Kline works for a public relations firm which has a contract with the Miners team. And does not directly work for the Miners. The only importance of noting that is twofold – Kline has other clients, and the football team angle plays a much smaller role than I had assumed going into the book (to a certain extent, the team plays a very tiny role, though the specific player plays a larger role in his impact on the story line).

Amy and Lena come into contact when, as previously mentioned, Laura got caught with that Miners football player in a compromising situation. The two other underage girl’s families were easily bought off. The third stormed into Kline’s office and demanded that the Miner never contact Laura again. Amy attempts to ‘pay off’ Lena for her troubles, but that just backfires and makes Amy look bad in Lena’s eyes. She doesn’t want money; she wants the older man away from her sister.

Amy is somewhat off her game for one specific reason – she’s oddly taken with the looks of this Lena person. Makes her less capable of communication than a public relations hotshot should be. A somewhat reoccurring theme in this story.

Amy and Lena circle each other throughout the story. Lena is less than taken with the idea of having anything to do with Amy – because of Amy’s job; while Amy is somewhat confused – for she hasn’t wanted to be serious about anyone for a good long while and she wants something serious with Lena (since her heart was ripped apart in college – since then she has had a long string of play partners who she has told, prior to engagement, that sex is all that could occur).

The story takes place in San Francisco (and a few other areas longish drives away), and during then after the ‘holidays’ period. Beginning right before Christmas, and includes New Years Eve parties. Before leaping forward a month or more (then more month(s)).

It includes as side characters: Chloe the lawyer (straight, best friend of Lena), Ben the 18 year old (Chloe’s brother; only cameo role), Chloe’s mother and father (who appear briefly so that Lena can visit them for the holidays), Sarah the super assistant (Amy’s assistant), Matt the detective boyfriend (Sarah’s boyfriend), Brittany the photographer/journalist (Amy’s fuck buddy who also does a story on the unsolved murder case involving the Michaels family), Evie 'it's Evelyn now' (the ex-girlfriend), surprise guests (who I cannot mention because of spoiler reasons), and a bunch of other random people (like a football player and his wife).

A good solid book. With conflict, resolution, sex, and . . . um . . . stuff. A slice of life/romance book (I originally put that as ‘lesbian romance’ but the heterosexual romances that occur are also important-ish).

The book was neither awe-inspiring, nor horrible. Hence my calling it a good solid book. I’d rate it somewhere around 4.2 stars.

August 22 2016