It’s a thin line between love and love-hating.

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.

The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but fakes it that she can.

Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. And they don’t get along. Next stop paradise!

But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good looking man she has ever seen . . . but also a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful Aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.

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Here’s another forgettable rom-com with a forgettable heroine. Where’s Susan Elizabeth Phillips when you’re looking for another feel-good romance?

The main-character/heroine is absolutely unremarkable – and she has to be this way so that many women with many traits can self-identify and feel that they can cosily escape their dreary lives in a world of fantasy where the men are hunky and very much attracted to featureless women.

Now you’re wondering what I do look like.
For a long time, that was a hard question for me to answer.
I don’t know. I just looked … pleasant.
Unremarkable, but friendly—like your nonthreatening best friend. Five-five. Collar-length brown hair. Arms, legs, boobs—the usual. The single most remarkable thing about me was that I had nondescript hazel-ish eyes with a blurry little pie-piece section in one iris that was light brown. And it wasn’t even that noticeable. I never even noticed anymore. And as far as I knew, Lucas had never noticed at all.

With the exception of some deep musings about love in the era of TikTok, the book is unremarkable and so easily forgettable that even though I read it two days ago, I can’t remember the name of the characters.

Except for this: strong relationships had to create a culture of appreciation.
A whole book, and that was all I’d retained: People in good relationships had to appreciate each other—say thank you, give compliments, notice what their partner was getting right—in ways that created a cushion of warmth and kindness that eased everything else.
Brilliant! Right? Super helpful! Or, at least, it would have been if Lucas had read the book. Or even not been checking his TikTok DMs while I was telling him about it.

Katie – that’s her name – has a real issue with her self-image and obsesses over every calorie and journals and if you ever had an eating disorder, this book is going to trigger it like crazy. I haven’t and I still felt triggered. She’s very …hmm, I won’t say innocent but young in her world views. She goes to take an interview with a Coast Guard hero and she falls for him.

Had I ever been mesmerized by an Adam’s apple before?
Or even noticed one?
I’m sure this face-to-face contact lasted only a second. But it felt like Matrix-style bullet time. As though I was taking in the angle of his eyebrows, and the slope of his nose, and the deep intensity of those eyes, frame by frame, in ultra slo-mo.
It wasn’t love at first sight. You can’t fall in love with a person you don’t even know.
But it was … something.
Longing at first sight, maybe? Yearning?
Salivating?
That face of his was beautiful.
I felt positively overtaken by the sight of it.
I wanted to buy it, and own it, and take it home.
And then, with what could only be described as the most charming, earnest, barely there smile in all of history, the guy touched the back of his own head—and yes, it was a longish burr cut—to indicate the hibiscus hair clip. Great hibiscus.

Urgh, I really don’t like how this woman talks.

Their sex is mediocre, the relationship is full of red flags and I wouldn’t recommend this book to my enemy. Why the three stars though? The occasional wisdom:

Next, Rue said, “I was just reading that old people are happier than young people. Do you want to know why?”
I nodded.
“Because old people,” Rue said, “don’t have as much time left. And they know it. It’s called a time horizon—a sense of how much time we have remaining. For teenagers, it’s vast. It’s infinite. But as we get older, it shortens and shortens—and we can’t help but feel it. As it shrinks, it makes everything more precious. We appreciate the days more because there are fewer of them to come. And it’s really true. I felt it so much today. How fast it all goes. How much we have to be thankful for. What a miracle each breath is.”