Shamrocks and Surprises

Holiday Beach #1

by Elle Rush

"Lucky" Lucy Callahan can fix anything, which is why her boss sent her to the Dew Drop Inn in Holiday Beach, Minnesota. The neglected hotel sounds like the perfect challenge for a woman who likes to bring things to their full potential.

Roy Wagner would happily see the Dew Drop Inn go up in a blaze of glory after the trouble it has caused his family. He’d even supply the marshmallows. He doesn't know what Lucy is doing in town, but he’s sure the relentlessly helpful, happy woman is up to no good.

Rebuilding a hotel is no easy task, especially when her new neighbor insists that she won’t be able to make the old hotel fit into Holiday Beach’s unique tourist-friendly setting, but Lucy hasn’t failed yet. If she can get Roy on her side, maybe she can convince him that the changes she’s bringing could be a very good thing for him and his hometown.

Genres: Fiction

219 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2021

About the author

Sweet contemporary romance author with addictions to Christmas and other holidays seeks readers to share fun, heartwarming romances with. Laugh-out-loud banter, yummy recipes and a list of favourite holiday tropes on request. (Spoiler: ALL OF THEM.)

Keep up with her new releases by subscribing to her newsletter at www.ellerush.com/newsletter

Reviews

[Rosanna Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you love small town romance with a Hallmark favour, you'll love Elle Rush's Shamrocks and Surprises. The action takes place around a hotel that has seen better days, and it is also the cause of some deep-seated family tensions. This dynamic changes when Lucy Callahan arrives in town, with orders from the hotel's management company to spruce it up. Her mission puts her in contact with Roy Wagner, who owns the bar next door...and who happens to be the estranged grandson of the hotel's owner. This is a sweet romance, one which develops out of friendship initially, but also a dose of conflict when Roy suspects Lucy might not have the best intentions. It becomes clear that Roy really needs to work out his family problems, as they have interfered in several aspects of his life. Lucy, a ray of sunshine, helps him confront the emotions he's held at bay for so long. I love that she puts him in his place a couple of times. There are lots of fun secondary characters, and a real community feel. You can really envision the town of Holiday Beach. The author has done a great job in depicting small town life, friendships and the accompanying gossip. If you need a warmhearted read, this will definitely fit the bill.

[Belinda Vlasbaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars - English Ebook

Sometimes you just need a sweet story to warm you up, and this definitely hit the spot! The fact it is set in a small town that goes all out for holidays, well, that’s one of my weaknesses I couldn’t resist. I mean, the town is called Holiday!!!

Lucy and Roy are either completely together, or he is at odds with her for one of various reasons he has blown out of proportion. Love that she never lets him get away with that, and also that she is a genuinely kind and caring person. She just has bad luck. That comes out with her interactions with the townsfolk, the caring and the luck, and she quickly becomes a part of this community. Roy comes around, eventually, on many things he thought were one way, but really were him being stubborn, and with both our characters finally on the same page, they can begin their happyly ever after. SMILE ON MY FACE, SMILE ON MY FACE.

[Dar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes you just need a sweet story to warm you up, and this definitely hit the spot! The fact it is set in a small town that goes all out for holidays, well, that’s one of my weaknesses I couldn’t resist. I mean, the town is called Holiday!!! Lucy and Roy are either completely together, or he is at odds with her for one of various reasons he has blown out of proportion. Love that she never lets him get away with that, and also that she is a genuinely kind and caring person. She just has bad luck. That comes out with her interactions with the townsfolk, the caring and the luck, and she quickly becomes a part of this community. Roy comes around, eventually, on many things he thought were one way, but really were him being stubborn, and with both our characters finally on the same page, they can begin their HEA.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read

I enjoyed the Main characters a lot. They’re arguing added to the romance. The sub characters added a great deal to the story and I look forward to reading more about each of them. The one downfall of this book was a horrendous editing. I do look forward to the next book in the series

[Karen Bauer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will say that overall, the idea and general story line were decent. Other than that, I was really disappointed in this book. Did no one proofread this before it went to print? Or did I just get a really bad copy? There were grammatical errors all over the place, typos, misspellings, quotation marks and periods in the wrong place, or completely missing. And some of the word formatting was messed up and spacing was way off. She described a date as March the Thirteen in 2 places and then on the next page it was March the Fourteenth, and then straight back to March the Fourteen. I counted at least 19 instances in the book where I almost just stopped reading because HOW could anyone miss that error?

I was also oddly put off by the fact that she described two separate characters as "the half-Black girl" or the "Black girl". It doesn't even effect the story line and their race is never brought up again anywhere in the book. If doesn't feel like it even needed to be mentioned.

She also used a lot of other "odd" word choices to describe things. The bowling alley had a glow night, which sounded fun, until she described the lights as "pot lights". She couldn't have called them UV lights, or blacklights? And then one character was described as having a metal leg, and the MMC just said "He lost his leg in an army accident" and that was that. I literally laughed out loud. An army accident? What even is that? Just so odd.

And finally, I simply could not buy into their relationship. Everything about it was so odd and forced, and quite frankly, felt out of place. Them showing interest in each other, then hating each other, then dating, then hating each other again; I didn't get it. I know by the end we're supposed to be all happy for them "getting back together", but they only knew each other for about a month and depending on the day, they either liked each other or hated each other? It was some weird whiplash for sure.

[Merry · Rating 5 out of 5]

it took more than a first glance

I was here to take a look at the Dew Drop Inn, to see what it needed in repairs but what I did not realize was that it had been neglected for quite awhile. But I did a little glance at the fellow that owned the bar next door, he deserved a second glance.☺️😂

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a cute, light-hearted story, and an easy read. The details about the town, bar, hotel, and the renovations gave it a lot more depth than a typical feel-good clean romance.

The only thing was it desperately needed a good proofing and editing too - there were some errors, inconsistencies, and a lot of typos.

Overall a cute read!