Review: The Girl in the Yellow Vest by Loretta Hill

Title: The Girl in the Yellow Vest

Published: Random House Jan 2014

Status: Read from January 02 to 05, 2014 — I own a copy {Courtesy the publisher/netgalley}

My Thoughts:

The third book in a loosely linked series, The Girl in the Yellow Vest is another engaging Australian contemporary romance by talented Aussie author, Loretta Hill.

Emily Woods was expecting her boyfriend of five years to propose, instead he asked her to move out and with her engineering career, stalled, she is in desperate need of a fresh start so when her best friend, Will, offers to find her work at his current project on Queensland’s coast, Emily jumps at the chance. Will is excited at the prospect of Emily joining him in Mackay, for five long years he has been careful to never betray his attraction to her, but now that she is single, perhaps he will find an opportunity to tell her how he feels.

I enjoyed the change of scenery Hill provides in The Girl in the Yellow Vest. Previous books, The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots and The Girl in the Hard Hat, featured Western Australia’s Pilbara region while here, Hill sets the book in Northern Queensland, based on a project she once worked at the Hay Point Wharf.

Emily and Will’s transition from friends to lovers is slow but lovely, both are afraid of damaging their close friendship and admitting their mutual attraction. Will is especially wary given his long standing friendship with Emily’s ex and the possibility they might make up. It takes a good while for Emily to realise that her feelings for Will have changed and their attempts to connect are plagued by miscommunication, poor timing and outside interference.

The subplot involving Barnes Inc boss, Mark Crawford and hotel owner Charlotte Templeton tends to steal the limelight from Emily and Will though. Charlotte, struggling with a failing business, a rebellious teenage sister and ill mother, and Mark, still mired in grief after the death of his wife two years previously, barely tolerate each other to begin with and the complications of their lives affects the way in which their relationship develops.

Really my only complaint about the novel is in regards to Mark, who, apart from being very similar to Dan ‘Bulldog’ in The Girl in the Steel Capped Boots, his speech in particular is too formal and often didn’t sound ‘true’.

I did really enjoy The Girl in the Yellow Vest, I love the way the author combines humour, romance and drama in an unique Australian setting. It was also lovely to be briefly reunited with previous characters (the book opens at Dan and Lena’s wedding) and I look forward to catching up with these characters again in Hill’s next book.