DIGITAL DOMAIN
Haole Wood - Dee DeTarsio (2012)
Jaswinder Park ditches her job as a San Diego TV weekend weather girl to go spend a few days in Hawaii, bailing out her paternal grandmother. She assumes that she will be back in time to hit the airwaves, with nary a ripple in the Pacific Ocean to cause her stress. But of course, things do not go as planned. First, she discovers that Halomi is in the old grey bar hotel because she was growing - and disbursing, in her own way - the marijuana. Then Jaswinder suffers a long-distance firing from her job. She gets drunk and has hot island sex under a banyan tree with a doctor. She gets sunburnt! Halomi faces a murder charge, and then her guardian angel, and a rather large guardian angel at that - shows up to "help". In addition to being something of a mystery - who DID kill the guy Halomi is accused of murdering? - this is a romance. That dude Jaswinder rocked the banyan tree with turns out to be a dermatologist, and a hot one at that. Jaswinder makes plenty of mistakes. Oh, my, does she screw up, but that's what I liked about her. She's real. Her mistakes aren't wearing the wrong top with the wrong skirt; they are jealousy over pretty women, presuming guilt and a healthy dose of selfishness. This is a sweet, delightful, fun book. I laughed out loud in quite a few places. Jaswinder is sassy and feisty, bless her. And her voice is so real - confused at some points, hopeful at others, snarky and sarcastic most of the time. She uses self-deprecation and snark to protect herself, and learning to lower that shield takes some time. (AP)
