Stranger in Paradise
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Romance, gossip, and murder upend a California town in this “intelligent, page-turning read” from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Diary (Booklist).
It isn’t easy to watch your daughter marry a man who’s twice her age, but Samantha Kiley holds her tongue. Wes seems like a good man, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s also a billionaire. She has no idea that she will soon be caught up in a May–December affair of her own that will set tongues wagging in the idyllic small town of Carson Springs.
When Sam, a widow, becomes involved with Wes’s son, who is fifteen years her junior, it sends tremors through the Kiley family and their small town. But gossip isn’t the most dangerous thing in Carson Springs: This peaceful place is about to be rocked by murder. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Eileen Goudge including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.
Stranger in Paradise is the 1st book in the Carson Springs Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"A woman alone is no good to anyone" could be the rallying cry for bestselling author Goudge's kickoff to a new series, the Carson Springs trilogy (following One Last Dance). Situated east of Santa Barbara, Calif., Carson Springs and its Spanish-style architecture and orange groves provide the scenic backdrop for a tale about second chances, focusing on 48-year-old Samantha "Sam" Kiley and her daughters, Alice and Laura. As the story opens, Alice is about to marry Wes Carpenter, a Ted Turneresque entertainment mogul nearly 30 years her senior. Then Wes's son, Ian, takes a shine to Sam and the two become romantically involved, alarming Sam's daughters and setting the gossipy town abuzz. Laura, divorced because she couldn't bear children, and given to taking in strays, gets a new lease on life when she provides shelter for 16-year-old female runaway Finch, introduced to the reader in the prologue as being on the lam following a violent incident in Brooklyn. Goudge's fictional test of one of society's great inconsistencies that it's okay for a man to be with a much younger woman, but not the reverse is interesting, but the supposed scandal caused when Sam reveals she is pregnant is dated, given how increasingly common it is for older women to bear children. Despite Finch's dramatic appearance in the prologue, her story line is incidental, forgotten for long stretches of time and, when it is finally wrapped up, like everything else in this Fiction Lite territory, it's in a too-neat package.
