Book Review: Beach Town

Author: Mary Kay Andrews

Publication Date: May 19, 2015

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Greer Hennessy needs palm trees.

As a movie location scout, picture-perfect is the name of the game. But her last project literally went up in flames, and her career is on the verge of flaming out. Greer has been given one more chance, if she can find the perfect undiscovered beach hideaway for a big-budget movie. She zeroes in on a sleepy Florida panhandle town called Cypress Key. There's one motel, a marina, a long stretch of pristine beach and an old fishing pier with a community casino-which will be perfect for the film's explosive climax.

There's just one problem. Eben Thibadeaux, the town mayor, completely objects to Greer's plan. A lifelong resident of Cypress Key, Eben wants the town to be revitalized, not commercialized. After a toxic paper plant closed, the bay has only recently been reborn, and Eb has no intention of letting anybody screw with his town again. But Greer has a way of making things happen, regardless of obstacles. And Greer and Eb are way too attracted to each other for either of them to see reason.

Between an ambitious director and his entourage-including a spoiled "It Boy" lead actor-who parachute into town, a conniving local ex-socialite, and a cast of local fangirls and opportunists who catch the movie bug, nothing is going to be the same in Cypress Key. Now Greer is forced to make some hard choices: about the people and the town she's come to care about, and about her own life. True love is only for the movies, right? Can Greer find a way to be the heroine in her own life story? Told with inimitable heart and humor, Mary Kay Andrews' Beach Town is the perfect summer destination.

Greer Hennessy needed palm trees. She needed Technicolor green fronds swaying in wind machine-enhanced breezes, with some Dolby-sound crashing waves. And was it too much to ask for a Panavision wide shot of a sun-kissed beach? Wasn’t this Florida?

The Gulf of Mexico, or what she could glimpse of it, was pretty enough, textbook turquoise, contrasted against sugar-white sand.

“I’m looking for the perfect beach town.”

My summer cannot truly begin until I have read the latest Mary Kay Andrews novel. Each and every novel that I have ever read by Andrews takes me only hours and allows me to feel so connected to her characters and puts me in a fresh frame of mind. This book follows Greer Hennessy, a movie scout that has recently lost her mother and has not had contact with her father in about twenty years. Greer is doing some traveling in order to find the ideal location for an upcoming movie shoot. She ends up in a Florida town called Cypress Key. Greer decides that this is the perfect location for the film, even though it looks all but deserted. However, Greer does not expect to run into the town’s mayor, Eben Thilbadeaux, who has other plans for the small town that do not include allowing it to be Hollywood commercialized. Greer meets an interesting cast of characters and is even able to reunite with her dad.

This book has a lot to say about love, family ties, greed, anxiety issues, and so much more. Greer was a character in need of self-discovery and ended up in just the right place to begin a journey like that. Cypress Key was the perfect place for this book to be set; I have always wanted to live in Florida, but am just afraid that I won’t be able to withstand the heat. However, this book gave me a nice little escape to the state that screams summer all year round! I also really enjoyed meeting/reading about Greer’s father. Readers get to learn a bit about his back story and he is actually very witty and adds a lot of humor to the story. Greer’s job was another point of interest for me; I did not know there was such thing as a movie location scout, but I must say that Greer was very good at her job! Jump into this gratifying summer read today!

***A free copy of this book was provided by the publishers at St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review***