REVIEW | THE HOLIDAY SURVIVAL GUIDE

When tabloid journalist Erica Parker is forced to take a holiday, she’s determined to make it the most miserable holiday she possibly can, but not even her impressive imaginative powers could have come up with sharing a tent with survival expert Nathan Wilde.

Nathan was a married man with a successful TV show before Erica got to work on his life. Now the hottest man she’s ever met is single, furious, and he’s got her alone in the wilderness for three long days…

If you’ve ever dreamed about being alone with Bear Grylls in the wilderness for a couple of days than this is the romance for you.  The premise of this book is a good one and it appealed to my Swiss Family Robinson daydreams but it doesn’t quite reach it’s potential.

I found the motivation behind Erica’s career choice and her choice of holiday hard to buy into and support as the reader; it just didn’t seem plausible that she’d have this much resentment and anger but still be a leading lady you’d want to invest in. Then there’s Nathan… For a man who lost everything he seems really keen to forget it all and humiliate himself again for the woman who took it all for him just because she’s so beguiling.

It’s like a brilliant book is just sitting there out of reach. It feels like the book would have benefited from a little more time to prove (borrowing from a baker’s terminology there).

I enjoyed reading and I’d be keen to try another one of Jane O’Reilly’s books, I just wished for more from this one.

The Holiday Survival Guide is available from Harlequin Australia now.