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agsmith07's review against another edition
4.0
As the beautiful cover suggests, Monarch Beach is about beautiful people who live in beautiful places. The book takes place in San Francisco (my favorite city, so the author won me over right there) and Laguna Beach (a.k.a Monarch Beach). It’s been a while since I’ve read a fiction book about people who live so affluently. It’s was fun escaping into the world of extreme wealth and luxury, even if I was sometimes very envious!
Amanda is an affable heroine, who’s life took a drastic turn at eighteen, when her father became gravely ill, forcing her to give up her dreams of going to school in New York City, to study fashion design at Parsons. She selflessly chose to stay home and be with her parents while her father bravely fought cancer. His eventual death devastated her.
Although brought up in the lap of luxury and raised by parents who adored her, Amanda has very little self-confidence and a broken heart, so it’s easy to see how she fell for Andre, a charming French chef she meets by chance at the tender age of twenty-two. Andre swept her off her feet. I wanted that to be the ending of the story, so she could live happily ever after, but not so…because the book opens after ten years have passed, with Amanda catching Andre with his pants down….literally!
Amanda is devastated, knowing that her marriage is over, yet Andre is charming (like a snake) and he doesn’t want to let her go. Her mother comes up with a plan to whisk her daughter and grandson away for the summer, so Amanda can heal and figure out what to do. Escape she did - to a presidential suite, in five star hotel on Laguna Beach – wow. Don’t we all wish we had the means to escape that way? Honestly, it was sometimes hard to feel sorry for Amanda as she exercised, went to the spa, lay by the pool and enjoyed nightly cocktails on the deck with her mother, while overlooking the Pacific Ocean for three(!) months. But at the end of the day….a broken heart is a broken heart, regardless of the tax bracket.
Over the course of the summer, Amanda gets her mojo back. Although she does meet someone (whom I really didn’t care for), at the end of the story, she’s ready to face her future alone. She managed to regain the confidence she’d lost years before, enabling her to pursue her dreams and start a new life, in a new city, with her son.
Monarch Beach is an inspiring story that shows it’s never too late to take the reins of your own life and start over.
Amanda is an affable heroine, who’s life took a drastic turn at eighteen, when her father became gravely ill, forcing her to give up her dreams of going to school in New York City, to study fashion design at Parsons. She selflessly chose to stay home and be with her parents while her father bravely fought cancer. His eventual death devastated her.
Although brought up in the lap of luxury and raised by parents who adored her, Amanda has very little self-confidence and a broken heart, so it’s easy to see how she fell for Andre, a charming French chef she meets by chance at the tender age of twenty-two. Andre swept her off her feet. I wanted that to be the ending of the story, so she could live happily ever after, but not so…because the book opens after ten years have passed, with Amanda catching Andre with his pants down….literally!
Amanda is devastated, knowing that her marriage is over, yet Andre is charming (like a snake) and he doesn’t want to let her go. Her mother comes up with a plan to whisk her daughter and grandson away for the summer, so Amanda can heal and figure out what to do. Escape she did - to a presidential suite, in five star hotel on Laguna Beach – wow. Don’t we all wish we had the means to escape that way? Honestly, it was sometimes hard to feel sorry for Amanda as she exercised, went to the spa, lay by the pool and enjoyed nightly cocktails on the deck with her mother, while overlooking the Pacific Ocean for three(!) months. But at the end of the day….a broken heart is a broken heart, regardless of the tax bracket.
Over the course of the summer, Amanda gets her mojo back. Although she does meet someone (whom I really didn’t care for), at the end of the story, she’s ready to face her future alone. She managed to regain the confidence she’d lost years before, enabling her to pursue her dreams and start a new life, in a new city, with her son.
Monarch Beach is an inspiring story that shows it’s never too late to take the reins of your own life and start over.
doublearegee's review against another edition
3.0
Not bad. I hate books where the main character is a woman and goes through a rough time with her man so she leaves him and goes on a journey to find herself and discovers that her journey leads her right back to him, so I was glad this isn't how this turned out. I'm also glad that my sneaky suspicion that her best friend was having sex with her husband while she was gone didn't turn out to be correct.
heartofoak1's review against another edition
3.0
nice beach read (although i was reading it during down time at a casino...)moved quickly, good characters and it was nice to read a story where the heroine figures out that she can be independent and do things that she wants to do.
bigsexy's review against another edition
1.0
This is the worst chick lit I have read...ever. I'm not kidding. I only read the entire book because I was stuck on a long flight.
kbranfield's review against another edition
4.0
Monarch Beach by Anita Hughes is a captivating novel about love, betrayal and starting over. To read my review in its entirety, please visit http://www.bookreviewsandmorebykathy.com/2012/06/14/monarch-beach/
fuzzywuzzy's review against another edition
5.0
I gave this book five stars because I simply couldn't find any reason not to. It was an easy read with a relatable main character and some simple realistic life wisdom.
serenaac's review against another edition
3.0
Monarch Beach by Anita Hughes is one of those beach reads that barely scratches the surface about what divorce can do to a family, especially when one spouse cheats on the other and more than once. To Amanda Blick’s credit she doesn’t go postal and take out her husband’s (Andre) French fondue restaurant in Ross, an exclusive, elite neighborhood, and she doesn’t have a nervous breakdown. Rather, Blick takers their son, Max, out of the San Francisco area to St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort with her mother, Grace, who promises to quit smoking if they come stay with her for the summer in the Presidential Suite.
Pretty posh lifestyle, but nothing less can be expected from the offspring of a society family, whose friends used to call her parents’ home The Palace. The relationship between Andre and Amanda is rushed, but that’s to be expected as she meets him just after graduating undergrad following a family tragedy. When Andre’s restaurant partnership sours, he doesn’t turn to his mother-in-law or his wife for help, but a busty former high school classmate of Amanda’s and her husband Glenn.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2012/07/monarch-beach-by-anita-hughes.html
Pretty posh lifestyle, but nothing less can be expected from the offspring of a society family, whose friends used to call her parents’ home The Palace. The relationship between Andre and Amanda is rushed, but that’s to be expected as she meets him just after graduating undergrad following a family tragedy. When Andre’s restaurant partnership sours, he doesn’t turn to his mother-in-law or his wife for help, but a busty former high school classmate of Amanda’s and her husband Glenn.
Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2012/07/monarch-beach-by-anita-hughes.html
ncsuloges's review against another edition
5.0
This was a First Reads Giveaway that I really enjoyed! Thank you so much for the fantastic book. I love books that are set at the beach and include a few cocktails. It's a great story of rising above the obstacles you face in life. My kind of read!
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