Opening Line:  “Nana turned to inspect the hotel room.”

Overall:  After her High School graduation, Tate’s Grandmother takes her on a trip to London.  Staying at the same hotel, they meet Luther and his Grandson Sam who are on vacation from America too.  Sam and Tate are attracted to eachother and start spending time together to try and get some freedom from their Grandparents.  As they get to know eachother, they tell eachother all their secrets,
and they quickly fall in love.  They feel that what they have is really special.  It is that incredible feeling of first love, mixed with the magic of being in a new, exciting country for the first time too.  They only have a couple weeks to spend as much time together as possible before their vacations end.  But suddenly, Sam betrays her trust and then disappears with Luther.  Tate is stunned and heartbroken to say the least.  Her world was broken-open and she was shattered.  For the next 14 years, Tate has heard nothing from Sam at all.  No contact from him and no explanations about what happened or why he betrayed her.  Tate has become an actress whos’ star is on the rise.  She now has a successful t.v. and film career and is famous.  But, her love life has been mostly for publicity and she has never been in love again after Sam.  She is starting a new movie on a remote farm with her Dad.  She hopes acting alongside her famous Father will finally bring them closer to the real Father/Daughter relationship she has always wanted from him.  But, when shooting starts on the film, she meets the screenwriter, and is shocked to find out it’s Sam.  She has so many emotions running through her all at once.  But, she is a professional actress and has to do her job there.  She tries to focus and give a good performance everyday.  But, she has so many feeling being stirred-up, and questions for Sam that she needs answers to.  Can she deliver a first-rate performance on this film, and form a lasting bond with her absentee father, and work out all her conflicting feelings from the past towards Sam, all at the same time?     

Ovations: The plot of this book was interesting, made sense the entire time, and nothing seemed forced or out of place.  There was no artificial staged set-up for their conflict.   It all seemed natural and very well planned and written.  I really hate in romance books when the trouble between the couple is stupid or unnecessary or would never really happen.  None of those issues came up in this book.  Also, I thought the “first love” storyline about when they first met in England was very sweet and you really felt the strong teenage emotions between them in every scene they were together in.  Knowing they only had a couple of weeks together made their feelings much more intense.  I liked the plot point of that when they reunited on the film set all those years later, it was a surprise to Tate but not to Sam.  It would have been so different if it was written as a surprise to both of them.  I loved how we got to be there to see and feel all of Tate’s conflicting feelings of confusion, anger, betrayal, suspicion, loss, frustration, jealously, attraction, longing and love towards Sam play-out all throughout her trying to also make this deep movie.  The end of the book was sweet and seemed natural and appropriate for the story.  I also really liked the secondary plot about Tate and her relationship, or lack of one, with her Father.  I really felt her deep sense of longing to know the real him instead of just the flashy actor the whole world sees.

Oh Well:  This was a good story idea and a good plot for a book.  But, the book was just sort of bland and blah.  There was no witty banter and it was not funny at all.  There was not really much sexy flirting  or hot and steamy romance either.    Also, I just could not believe that Tate did not connect the plot of the movie with Luther and Roberta’s life story.  I found it hard to believe that she did not connect-the-dots there and realize who that screenplay was about.       

Opinion:   This It was a cute, first love story.  But, it was just quite tame and dull.   Nothing really special and sparkling in the plot, but nothing awful and hideous either.  Just all-in-all a nice, bland, romance book. I would say it would be really good for a teenager, but not so much for an adult.  There are so many other really good romances out there to read.  If you are an adult, I recommend you choose one of those instead.  Rating 6 out of 10