After All the Feels and Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade once again delivers a warm and wonderful romantic comedy about two co-stars who once had an incredible one-night stand–and after years of filming on the same remote island, are finally ready to yield to temptation again…
Maria’s one-night-stand–the thick-thighed, sexy Viking of a man she left without a word or a note–just reappeared. Apparently, Peter’s her surly Gods of the Gates co-star, and they’re about to spend the next six years filming on a desolate Irish island together. She still wants him…but he now wants nothing to do with her.
Peter knows this role could finally transform him from a forgettable character actor into a leading man. He also knows a failed relationship with Maria could poison the set, and he won’t sabotage his career for a woman who’s already walked away from him once. Given time, maybe they can be cooperative colleagues or friends–possibly even best friends–but not lovers again. No matter how much he aches for her.
For years, they don’t touch off-camera. But on their last night of filming, their mutual restraint finally shatters, and all their pent-up desire explodes into renewed passion. Too bad they still don’t have a future together, since Peter’s going back to Hollywood, while Maria’s returning to her native Sweden. She thinks she needs more than he can give her, but he’s determined to change her mind, and he’s spent the last six years waiting. Watching. Wanting.
His shipwrecked Swede doesn’t stand a chance.
Review:
OMG, this book.
Ship Wrecked is everything I’ve come to expect from an Olivia Dade book–snarky, LOL-inducing, sexy-as-heck, body positive fun–this time, with bonus lessons in Swedish candy, slang, and swearing. (Spoiler alert: there’s lots of excrement in the last two. Hopefully not in the first? Though Peter might disagree…)
Peter and Maria’s romance somehow ended up being a slow burn (SIX YEARS!) enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story, despite the fact that it literally starts with a bang (I feel the need to repeat *literally* here, because yes, that kind of a bang) during their very memorable one night stand before they discover–surprise!–they’re going to be coworkers. Like seriously, a slow burn romance shouldn’t have even been a possibility given their opening scene antics, but somehow Ms Dade managed it, and made it believable, like the freaking miracle worker/author she is.
I LOVED Maria and Peter, both separately and as a couple. I adored Maria’s positive self image and total determination to stick up for herself, even when their absolute jerkwad series producers were determined to break her. Not going to lie, her ability to pull out a jar of pickled herring out of nowhere at a moment’s notice scares me a little, but it speaks to her total commitment to being, well, her and I appreciate that. I spent roughly 98% percent of the book wanting to hug Peter, which is quite a feat considering I’m not much of a hugger and Peter definitely isn’t either. But OMG his insecurities spoke to me, and the way Maria understood him better than he did and went out of her way to bring him into the little family she was putting together on their remote island? SHE HAS SERIOUS SKILLS, Y’ALL.
Once again Ms Dade also worked her magic with the dreaded black moment–I thought I was firmly on one of the character’s side in their breakup, until that character had a come-to-Jesus moment which also had me rethinking everything, and then in the end when they both took ownership for the blowup, mutually admitting to all the ways their pasts had tried their best to keep them from their much-deserved HEA–I was like, yeah, what they said! Obviously! I knew that all along! and then quietly marveled at her genius storytelling. Again. <3
For fans of the series, don’t worry, even though our main characters spend the bulk of their six years on a remote island far away from the rest of the Gods of the Gate cast, we still have plenty of LOL-inducing cast group chats to get us all through it, along with 100% NSFW emails from a certain coworker of theirs who’s particularly fond of fanfic. (And can I just say, I knew Whiskers had a bestselling book in him! Called that one!) For readers who might not have read Spoiler Alert and All the Feels yet, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW and get caught up! Sure, this one has our MCs far away from their cast mates for much of the novel, but trust me, you’re going to want to know what exactly is going on with the rest of them the whole time (all 3 take place concurrently, essentially) and you might feel a little lost if you don’t (or don’t remember…honestly, even if you’ve read them already, a series binge read isn’t a bad idea. Just to fully appreciate all the MCs in their appropriate glory…)
You can thank me later. Or just thank me now…I’m flexible like that. 😉
Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A