Aquavit

by Karen Stensgaard

Planning A Vacation Was Never So Complicated or Dangerous.
After a traumatic night, businesswoman Kat Jensen de-stresses with shots of Scandinavian aquavit known as ‘water of life’ liquor. With her audit consulting business closing and nothing keeping her at home in New York City, Kat has a few months before starting another job search. She decides to do something special - a cruise onboard an old clipper sailing ship pictured on an aquavit bottle. Despite finding a fantastic voyage and itinerary, Kat is forced to resolve continual issues while juggling dates with three men. After arriving in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the scheduled departure, scary omens and worries threaten all her plans.

281 pages, Paperback

Published May 5, 2017

About the author

Karen Stensgaard has published three novels: AQUAVIT and BLUENESS in the Aquamarine Sea series; and PROJECT ONION in the Melville Consulting series. Her latest novel taps into her former career as an internal auditor and consultant in New York City. Karen’s a member of the Authors Guild and the Alliance of Independent Authors.

Stay in touch on social media and via karenstensgaard.com with a monthly travel photo blog or join her Facebook Novelist page. On YouTube, she has some videos and music playlists for her books. Photos illustrate some characters and scenes in her novels on Pinterest. Karen is also on Instagram and Twitter.

Reviews

[Michelle Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by Michelle Stanley for Readers' Favorite

Aquavit is Book One in The Aquamarine Sea Series by Karen Stensgaard. Stressed by the closure of her audit consulting business and a disastrous blind date with Charlie, widow Kat Jensen unwinds with a bottle of Aquavit known as the “water of life”. The bottle’s image inspires her to take a cruise on an old-time clipper and she makes the arrangements.

Kat also dates Greg, an older man, and Matteo, an Italian stud, but feels pressured by both who vie for her attention. Charlie also wants a second chance yet Kat wonders if he can be trusted. How she misses her husband whose ashes are to be returned to Denmark. Kat can’t wait to start the adventurous cruise despite the clipper’s specific rules and her friends’ warnings of impending danger.

I was filled with a yearning to sail on this clipper as well, although a few rules made me hesitate. Aquavit is a novel that will touch the hearts of anyone who reads it. Kat is a woman who misses the comfort zone she had with her husband. She has an urge to break out of her standard routine and try something new. I guess we all experience this at times.

The character development and scenes are impressive and well planned. Karen Stensgaard shows her writing strength in all areas of this beautiful, exciting story and the excerpt from Blueness, Book Two. The Aquamarine Sea Series is filled with romance, adventure, and a bit of danger to hold your interest.

[Ann Springer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting locations and a likable heroine. Easy to read. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

[Regina Meehan-simunek · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I expected

I was very disappointed because I thought this book was going to be so different, some may love it but I was expecting more intrigue about the “trip”. Not about a woman who seems to attract men like bees to honey who is grieving the death of her husband.....

[Karen Stensgaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are 5 independent reviews:
Five Star Review from Michelle Stanley for Readers' Favorite:
Aquavit is a novel that will touch the hearts of anyone who reads it. Kat is a woman who misses the comfort zone she had with her husband. She has an urge to break out of her standard routine and try something new. The character development and scenes are impressive and well planned. Karen Stensgaard shows her writing strength in all areas of this beautiful, exciting story and the excerpt from Blueness, Book Two. The Aquamarine Sea Series is filled with romance, adventure, and a bit of danger to hold your interest.

Independent Judge, 5th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published eBook Awards 4 Star Review:
This book is extremely well written. The character development is excellent, dialogue is believable, and descriptions of settings are thorough and quite vivid. The plot is intriguing, and the pace is satisfying in that the reader wants to keep turning the pages. The author makes the reader care about the characters, which is no easy feat.

Five Star Review from Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite
After completely hooking us on Kat's battles with her suitors and hints of complications once Kat is on her voyage, author Karen Stensgaard leaves readers dying to know what happens with Kat, the clipper trip, and the men she leaves behind. The author gives us a taste of what's to come in the second book, Blueness, at the end of Aquavit. This sequel is already available on Amazon. But you know what I have to do before I get into that one? I've got to buy some Aquavit! There must be something in that drink besides the photo of the clipper ship on the label that got Kat so excited about sailing on an old 1860s boat! Such a refreshing change to read a unique book like this! Delightful.

Five Star Review from Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
An interesting story that explores travel and one woman's struggle with her choices, especially when it comes to where she wants to be and whom she wants to be with. The story is told in the protagonist's own words, in a first-person narrative voice that pulls the reader in right from the start. The author explores the internal fears and preoccupations of the protagonist brilliantly and allows readers to feel the vagaries of her heart and inner world. Aquavit has an international setting that is clearly depicted in the beautiful descriptions. I enjoyed the well-crafted dialogues, the richly developed characters, and the realism that permeates the narrative.

Blue Cat Blog Review Highlights
Kat has been widowed for about a year now. She's just closed down her internal audit business and isn't quite ready to move into a new field. She gets the idea from a picture on a bottle of Aquavit to take a cruise on a vintage clipper ship. In the process, she seems to be attracting men that she's not sure are right for her. The pace was good. Kat is one of those characters that things just keep happening around and who doesn't sit still for long. She moved on from one thing to another and didn't let the dust settle. The tension was amazing. I remember when I got to the last page, I let out my breath, not realizing I'd been holding it. I had to let the tension go! I'm intrigued with this clipper ship business. They have asked all sorts of questions. They have made all sorts of rules about what she can and cannot take. The three men in Kat's life were great. I thought they were a really nice assortment. Greg and his snap changes of personality. Charlie and his possible ulterior motives, and Matteo and his possible outside interests. They were all nice enough to be possibilities, but then they all had their faults as well. The author's profile says she has more books with Kat's adventures underway, so let's hope we don't have to wait too long for the next installment.

[Angelica Bentley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kathryn Jensen, after fighting for years to climb the financial management ladder in a men’s world, has reached a crisis point in her professional and emotional life. Two years after her husband’s premature death to cancer, she winds down her consulting audit business and decides to take a break to pursue her dream of sailing on a clipper. The immediate obstacle is that such sailboats no longer exist in their original engine-free condition, which unleashes a stubborn desire to prove the general wisdom wrong.

The story is narrated in the first person by the heroine, so we are treated to a lot of repetitive introspection and inner dialogue. The writing is a bit amateurish, with curiously worded phrases and plotting lapses which hinder comprehension. The author also flips jarringly from past to present tense narration for no clear reason. A capable editor could improve this book significantly. I was interested in the story enough to finish reading, but by the end the suspension of disbelief required became such that I lost all desire to read the sequel.

Without ruining it for others, I will simply say that I frequently found the heroine’s behaviour to be at odds with what we are “told”. For such an intelligent woman, her thoughts and actions are illogical and often ridiculous. Also, the big heartbreaking discovery she makes towards the end can easily be explained by her remarkably self-centred attitude and her stubborn refusal to entertain anything other than her own wishes. Since I fully expected it, the shock effect for me was missing.

From my knowledge of the travel industry, the whole clipper cruise setup would simply not happen as described, so another convenient fantastical plot device. Perhaps the hardest “fact” to swallow is how devastatingly alluring this 47-year-old woman seems to be. Once she decides to stop mourning and start dating again, every man she meets instantly falls for her (one starts to talk marriage within a week of meeting her). Of course, they are all attractive, rich, and desirable men, but somehow “wrong” for her. Also she has an unusual number of friends always ready to go the extra mile for her despite the fact that her default mood is irritated and aggressive. Too many convenient plot devices and eye-rolling moments to really enjoy what promised to be a fairly original tale. Also, since the book ends before the start of this clipper cruise that has been the unrelenting driving theme, technically we are left with a cliff-hanger.

[Judah Kosterman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Give Aquavit credit where credit is due. The tone and vocabulary choices are right for chick lit. The setting is New York - full of social opportunities, culture, great restaurants (the food descriptions are fantastic), upscale bars, and shopping aplenty. Our narrator is the smart, well-off (because she earned it), childless-by-choice Kat who has a challenging occupation (internal auditor) which could land her in interesting plot point territory, but which isn’t there in any kind of (boring) detail.

Kat is a slightly different flavor of chick lit in that she is 47 and recently widowed. Single gal, but with emotional baggage (including her husband’s ashes, still to be scattered in his native Denmark) whose first date in a long time goes disastrously viral. Add to these Kat’s business failing. What she really wants is a cruise, and not the big ship type but on an old-fashioned sailing vessel. It’s quirky and she’s stubborn about it and the shopping list for a period cruise is challenging to say the least. So far so good. There are hints that the cruise will have supernatural elements (or at least a god-hand pulling strings to get her on it), and that the final destination of Hong Kong could place Kat in peril from bad guys she busted as an auditor in her past. Even better.

But what’s missing from Aquavit are two vital elements of chick lit.

First, other chicks. This is distinct from other female characters, which Aquavit has. There are no sister- or mother-figures, co-workers or rivals, besties or neighbors for Kat to get silly with, go shopping or museum hopping with, make bad decisions with, have long conversations into the night with. The reader rarely gets to see Kat in the secret-society-of-women way, and that’s a shame.

Second, there should be an every-girl-ness to a chick lit protagonist. Even if she’s well-off and smart, she should still have the zany in her life, have to improvise, tear around somewhere between despair and laughter at least once. How to get period costumes on the quick? Which doc is willing to sign off on a medical form? Oh no, bought the clothes a size too small. Opportunities for humor or for having aspects of Kat’s life collide are not taken advantage of, and more than once Kat seems to trade sex for favors.

Still, there is the cruise to look forward to in book two. Consider this book a character introduction, and see where the series takes her.

[Jackie Hamlin]

Nearly gave up on this a few times but finished it in the end. Won't be reading the next one!