SOUTHERN STAR - Phyllis Humphrey and Carolann Camillo
Avalon
ISBN: 978-0-8034-7705-6
February 2011
Contemporary Romance

The Bahamas - Present Day

With the death of her father, Marilee Shaw has inherited his pride and joy, the yacht Southern Star —and a mountain of debts.  Unwilling to see the bank auction off the yacht for less than it's worth, Marilee hopes to run the last charter her father had scheduled to pay off the bills and earn her enough time to sell it.  Unfortunately she hasn't been able to find a captain and will now have to go to Gary Pritchard for help.  Marilee has known Gary most of her life and had a schoolgirl crush on him which later turned into love.  But when Gary proposed to her, Marilee's fears got the better of her, and she turned him down and left the islands.

Marilee is surprised when Gary readily agrees to captain the cruise and can't help but wonder what's in it for him.  When he declares that by the end of the cruise she'll admit that they belong together, Marilee gets scared again.  She's always wanted a stable relationship, not a man who takes off for days at a time because of his job, and that hasn't changed in the eight years since she broke his heart.  She's not about to fall in love with him all over again.

Set against the island backdrop, SOUTHERN STAR is an interesting romance.  Watching her parents split up because of her father's sailing, Marilee knows she could never be happy with the same kind of relationship; she's too much like her mother.  She has a life in California to return to, so getting too involved with either Gary or the life in the islands would be a bad idea.  Yet, she can't seem to help herself on either count.  As the novel is told completely from Marilee's point of view, we get a very clear picture of her feelings and her confusion.  We don't, however, see Gary quite as well, and a little more insight into his thoughts and emotions would have been nice.  Other than that, SOUTHERN STAR is an entertaining novel.

Jennifer Bishop