Stars: 3
Review by: MandyApgar
When this was good, it was really good. Reporter and slightly stereotypical disgruntled divorcee Fleeson gets a job offer from a friend, a botanist on the Hawaiian island of Kauai - come over, stay in an itty bitty shack, help me care for endangered plant species, and you can drive the company car. She actually accepts, and finds herself working for the National Tropical Botanical Garden, an organization devoted to trying to preserve the islands' native flora (most of their native species are endangered or extinct) while keeping native traditions alive at the same time. For 95% of the book it was really good, the author and a motley crew of locals (and a feral cat, Sam) battling storms and finicky seedlings. An avid gardener since childhood, she really enjoys her work and finds a new sense of purpose in it. The she goes all Melrose Place and gets very into a steamy affair with her hunky surfing instructor friend Cal (seriously). If it had fit the prior tone of the book, fine, I don't care. But the way she wrote about things seemed very out of character and started to derail the book. Sadly then, her friend (the one who got her the job) dies suddenly while on a fundraising jaunt. Caught under the thumb of useless paper pushers trying to take over the garden, she finds herself drifting, which is of course understandable, but brings the book to a screeching halt.
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