3 out of 4 stars
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If you are in need of a charming, quick book to read on a rainy day - look no further. The Duck Springs Affair is precisely that. The book follows the story of Cassie and Paul, two completely different people driven together by mutual fascination. Cassie is an emotionally neglected farmer’s wife who longs to find a connection with someone. Her husband, Austin, has a demanding career which forces him to leave her for extended periods of time to look after their farm alone.
Enter Paul, a handsome, sensitive stranger who has worldly experience that Cassie has never known. She has been a farmgirl her whole life, and her only skill is canning peaches. So, when Paul arrives in Duck Springs with his construction crew to build a highway, she is immediately captivated by him. He, conversely, is drawn to Cassie from the moment he speaks to her. The two begin a romance which could have disastrous consequences for them both. Will love find a way?
This is a simple story with charming characters and a pleasant setting. I am not going to try and make this book something which it could never have been. It couldn’t have been an intricate romance with many facets and characters. With only 114 pages, it rules out certain development as far as a story is concerned. That didn’t take away from how much I ended up enjoying the book.
Paul and Cassie’s characters are very well fleshed out. The author, John Isaac Jones, goes into complex detail about the two leads which allows the reader to identify with them straight away. Because there is a severe lack of second-string cast, Cassie and Paul’s development is a necessity. Jones describes Paul’s emotional conflicts and Cassie’s loneliness so accurately that I couldn’t help but empathise with them.
I do feel that a few things in the book are a bit repetitive. A lot of the intimate scenes between Cassie and Paul are described in the same way. The phrase “thrusting their bodies together” is used numerous times, and it shows a lack of imagination. Not only does Jones fail in his descriptions of the sex scenes, but in the dialogue as well. There are repeated conversations and thoughts throughout the book. Cassie even has two journal entries, dated almost two years apart, which are virtually identical.
There were enough grammatical errors in the book to prevent me from giving it a four-star review. The errors, however, were not copious and did not detract in any way from the book. They were simple mistakes mostly in the form of missing hyphens and missing words. “Home school” and “rear view mirror” are two examples of the lack of a hyphen. Again, very minor mistakes which could easily be overlooked. After thinking about it, I decided that 3 out of 4 stars was a fair evaluation based on the book as a whole. As sweet as it was, The Duck Springs Affair was not an overly memorable or unique book. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t think it was quite as distinct as it could have been.
Lovers of romance will enjoy this quick read, and I would especially recommend it to fans of The Bridges of Madison County. There are a few sex scenes, but nothing too perverse. Cassie and Paul’s love is refreshing, and as someone who doesn’t actively read romances, I thought this one was great.
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The Duck Springs Affair
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