After a broken relationship, Emily, The Girl in the Yellow Vest (TGYV) says good bye to her boring Perth engineering job to join her best friend, Will, in Queensland in the hope of advancing her career.
Emily struggles to come to grips with her break-up, her growing no-longer platonic relationship with Will and a determination to prove herself as a capable engineer. Will treads carefully around Emily not wanting to make the ultimate betrayal. Mark, ‘the Barnes’, is project manager and is still getting over the death of his wife while Charlotte, the resort manager, has her hands full looking after a mother, whose health is deteriorating, and a rebellious teenage sister.
The story is told from four points of view – Emily, Will, Mark and Charlotte’s. The inevitable complications, family dramas, conflicts and misunderstandings arise set to the backdrop of the beautiful Great Barrier Reef.
TGYV simmers away lightly gathering pace as the characters develop.
For readers, this is a light, girly good read with some entertaining moments thanks to a turkey! In writing, Loretta Hill doesn’t let the story get bogged down in construction or engineering details.
From a writers’ point of view:
- Some typos slipped through the editing stage
- Good examples of using body language to express emotion and using showing not telling
- Limited use of adverbs
- A couple of instances where body language is used as a dialogue tag.
Overall, I enjoyed this book for both its romantic and entertainment aspects.
Casey Fae Hewson 