It Had to Be You

Mystery and romance in Lucky Harbor...

I really enjoy the Lucky Harbor series. All the books are fun sweet feel good listens. This one has the added bonus of a mystery. The narrator did a pretty good job but I must admit I would prefer to have the same narrator continue with all the series instead of a different one for each book. This is a great book to listen to during the summer.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

2 ½ stars. It was ok, but I wanted it to be over.

That’s not a good sign.

The author had some good ideas and interesting characters. But when it came to filling in 300 pages, it just wasn’t special enough. At the end a small thing bothered me because it was predictable.

CAUTION SPOILER:
Someone calls the police saying a bad guy has a gun. By the time the police arrive the good guy managed to get the gun away from the bad guy, so the police arrest the good guy. I shouldn’t be bothered, but I was, but it was brief. Anyway the police suspected the bad guy and were supposed to be doing surveillance on the bad guy. So why were no police following the bad guy?
END SPOILER.

Ali was searching for the stolen money. If she was successful in finding it, the police might think she knew where it was all along and think she was guilty - again. She was kind of stupid in the things she was doing. Sometimes light stupidity is funny, but it wasn’t working for me.

I wish the author went into more plot development. Some good ideas were started but not continued. Why did the senator kill himself if he was getting away with other murders? Somehow this was Luke’s big guilt problem and I didn’t understand. I also wanted more about the reporters and his commander.

The relationship between Luke and Ali was kind of blah. It’s mostly doing good things to help each other out with their problems.

There are many books in the series. This is book 7. And even though I did not give this a high rating, I liked reading about this community. It was enjoyable. I felt like I’m living in a small town on the ocean.

One cute event made me chuckle. Luke and Ali were driving to a bar to talk to someone. Luke said “When we get there, let me lead.” He parked in the parking lot, catching her before she could jump out of the truck. “Wait.” He said. His phone was ringing. Holding onto her purse, clearly a man who knew how to slow down a woman, he punched speaker on his phone.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
The narrator Annie Greene was very good as a performer/narrator, but she says contractions in a way that jars me. Instead of couldn’t, hadn’t, etc., she says couldet and hadet. If speaking slowly she says couldunt, hadant, woulden. Every time she did this my mind went “what’s she doing?” I’m sorry for complaining, but I really prefer generic TV anchor speak.

Genre: contemporary romantic mystery

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Good story, good narration

What did you love best about It Had to Be You?

This story has lots of humor and many sweet moments. I enjoy this series and this is a solid addition to it.

Any additional comments?

I wish we had seen a little more interaction with the senior crowd (I love the senior crowd at Lucky Harbor!), and would love to know how the gallery showing went for Ali's ceramics. The narration was good, though the audio seemed to vary here and there, with a semi-echo quality occasionally - a distraction but not a problem. The narrator did distinguish all the different voices pretty well.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful