A Little Bit of Passion by Beate Boeker

I'm a sucker for books in the form of letters or diaries. And, Beate Boeker is doing a guest blog here tomorrow, so I wanted to read her latest romance, A Little Bit of Passion. This book made me laugh. There are some delightful young men in the book, and it's hard to resist the fourteen-year-old Gerry, and six-year-old Ben. They add the laughter to the romantic problems of a woman who can't settle down.

Karen Larsen thinks she has the best of all worlds. In the winter, she's a skiing instructor in the Tetons. In the summer, she returns to the Hamptons, where she owns a small bookstore with her best friend, Leslie. She's an independent woman, divorced from a man who was too controlling. And, she's determined to live life on her own terms.

But, things don't always go as planned, so Karen and Leslie email back and forth. One of Karen's skiing students from the previous year, Howard, has returned to make her life miserable. But, to make up for it, she has a fourteen-year-old, Gerry, and his father, John, who are as kind as they can be. As she spends more time with them, she learns John is an entrepreneur who has custody of his son for the first time, a talented young musician who adores his father, but wants to carve his own way as a sax player. It doesn't take long for Karen and John to grow closer, but she's wary of getting too close and losing her independence. It's Leslie, on the other end of the emails, who suggests Karen just enjoy herself for a change. She doesn't have to live her life only for a passion for independence. And, John understands that so well.

There's a series of misunderstandings that work themselves out in the course of the book, but not before I became a little impatient. I was much less patient with Karen and her fears than Leslie and John were. Even so, this is an enchanting romance, made no less so by the inclusion of the two young boys. They added sparkle and humor to this book.

Read the book for the beautiful settings, the Tetons in the winter, Seattle in the spring, the Hamptons in the summer. Or read it for the romance. Maybe you'll pick up A Little Bit of Passion for the humor and the email correspondence. I think you'll find Boeker's book a romantic spring treat.

Beate Boeker's website is http://www.happybooks.de/

A Little Bit of Passion by Beate Boeker. Avalon Books. ©2011. ISBN 9780803476509 (hardcover), 192p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - The publisher sent me a copy of the book, knowing Beate Boeker was going to be a guest blogger.