One Week Later

Despite the fabulous tropical setting and temptingly described day-drinking cocktails, this well-crafted contemporary from Micciche (The End of Summer) is less breezy beach read than emotional look at how mixed signals can trigger heartbreak. Debut novelist Beckett Nash’s romantic, island-set tale of a vacation fling gone wrong is getting a lot of buzz. Then early readers notice the similarities between it and the most recent book from Beckett’s ex, midlist romance author Melody Adam. It’s not plagiarism: they’ve both written novels trying to process how their relationship fell apart. Flashbacks from Melody’s perspective and excerpts from Beckett’s novel slowly reveal two sides to the story of how they got together on vacation in Aruba and what went wrong. Micciche somewhat over-relies on coincidence to create drama and the circumstances that drove the couple apart strain credulity a bit, but it’s still imminently satisfying to watch these two realize what they mean to each other and work it out in the present. Second-chance romance fans will eat this up. (Jan.)