Review of ‘Vacation People’ by Cheri Ritz

I thought this was a sweet lesbian romance novel. This is a debut for Ritz and while there were some issues, her writing shows promise and this was a satisfying debut. This is an age-gap romance with a tiny bit of fauxmance thrown into it. When it came to the age-gap, I almost forgot about it. It is discussed in the beginning but once the characters get beyond the initial stage of attraction, the age-gap issue is not brought up ever again. The fauxmance elements are small, with the characters pretending to be on their honeymoon. The fauxmance part is more there just for an excuse for the characters to do things together.

I did enjoy the romance. It is faster moving than I personally care for, but again for a type of sweet, beach-read romance, I don’t care as much. It’s not very realistic but so what. I thought they had decent chemistry and I was hoping for a happily ever after. I also thought the sex scenes were well done. While they are not overly long or overly explicit, there is enough variety that you don’t feel like you are reading the same intimate scene over and over. It was a nice change of pace.

While I found both mains to be nice and likable, I didn’t feel they had the amount of depth I was hoping for. The mains being unlucky in love were one of the deeper facts about them. They both were pretty, rich, and successful with no real flaws, so to me, that’s a bit boring. Too much about them was only on the surface and I wanted more so I could actually connect with them.

Unfortunately, the secondary characters were even worse. Instead of characters that drove the plot forward, they seemed to slow it down. Most of the secondary characters could be removed from the book and they would not be missed. But this was the kind of debut issues I was mentioning earlier and I’m sure R*itz will get much better with this the more she writes.

If you are looking for a beach read with an age-gap romance, this book might be for you. While there were a few debut stumbles, this was a perfectly nice read. I think there is potential with this author and I would read her again. 3.25 Stars.

An ARC was given to me for an honest review.