Desire After Dark by Marie Force 
Series: The McCarthys of Gansett Island #15
on May 23rd 2016
Genres: Blue Collar, Contemporary, Small Town
Pages: 325
Format: eBook
I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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[box style=”rounded” border=”full”]This was presented to me as a stand alone story. As #15 of the Gansett Island series, I can attest that it is far from it. There was too many side stories going on and I couldn’t get into the novel. This was a DNF for me.[/box]
I will start out by telling you that I have not read any of Marie Force’s Gansett Island series. This story was offered to me and it was noted that even if I had not read any of the previous Gansett Island books, that this story could be read as a stand alone. I love Marie Force’s Green Mountain series so I thought I would give this a try.
The basic story is that Tobias “Slim” Jackson flies a small plane and flies people from the main land to Gansett Island during the summer time. Slim usually takes his plane and goes to Florida during the wintertime to fly people around the south. Slim and Erin Barton met during a previous story and they have kept in touch while Slim has been in Florida. When Slim flies back to Gansett Island to attend a wedding, he wants to spend as much time with Erin as he can and he wants to talk her into coming back to Florida with him.
Erin in the lighthouse keeper on Gansett Island but it appears to be such a non-job as Slim is trying to convince Erin to let her friend come in for a few minutes every day to do it for her while he takes her to Florida. Erin also freelance writes an advice column which she can do from any location. The problem with Erin leaving comes down to the fact that she lost her twin brother when the World Trade Center fell and on top of her still fighting her grief and depression, Erin now has a fear of flying.
The story starts out the morning after the wedding when Erin and Slim wake up together, even if there was no sexy fun time, and Erin decides to invite Slim to stay with her for the two weeks he will stay on Gansett Island so that he doesn’t have to bother opening his house again.
My biggest problem with the story is that it was definitely NOT a stand alone book. I could jump ahead in the story even though I wasn’t part of their initial meet, but since it was Book #15, everyone who already follows the series has already met all the other people on the island. Since there is nothing to do during the winter but have house parties, everyone on the island is BFFs or related in some way. In the first half of the story, we were dragged away from Slim and Erin too many times for updates on the other couples from the prior books and told who was having kids, who was having interrupted sexy fun time because they now had kids, etc.
My problem wasn’t that we didn’t start at the beginning of Slim and Erin’s story but that we were so often interrupted, I was halfway through and I had no connection or even interest in the main couple featured in this story. There was nothing that stood out about them nor was there anything intriguing enough about them to make me want to wade through the distractions.
THOUGHTS:
If you are a fan of Marie Force’s Gansett Island series, you are probably interested in reading Slim and Erin’s story, and I am sure you will be excited to find out who is pregnant and how your favorite characters and their growing families are doing now.
I did send a note back to the publisher since they had been asking for my review of the story, and I advised them that they should no longer promote this as a stand alone book since reviews will not reflect well on the series when reviewers like myself are not allowed to walk into this series cold and still enjoy the book.
I believe the first few books are available for free if you would like to get started on this Marie Force series.
I’ve read the first 8 or so books in the Gansett Island series and I would say that even at this point, the books are not really stand-alone so #15 definitely would not be. Marie likes to substantially introduce characters in previous books before they get their own story (not just superficially introduce them as some authors do) so you’d miss quite a bit of back story without reading in order. On the other hand, it’s a very enjoyable series and the first two books are free right now, so it would be a good time to jump in.
I love the series and can easily understand how a new reader would be lost if Desire After Dark was read as a stand alone book.
I hope the publisher acts on your recommendation.