Synopsis
One summer weekend can change everything …
Alicia Marlowe’s life as an executive coach is well under control – until she meets her new client, Jack Smith. Jack’s reputation precedes him and Alicia knows immediately that he spells trouble. Not least because he reminds her of someone else – a man who broke her heart and made her resolve never to lower her guard again.
Taking Jack on as a client is a risk, but one that Alicia decides to take for the good of her career. As long as she keeps him in his place, she might just make it through unscathed. But Jack has other ideas – including a ‘business’ trip to the Lake District. One summer weekend with him is all it takes to put Alicia’s carefully organised world in a spin …
Linked to Hope, Mistletoe and a Christmas Promise but can be read as a standalone story. This is Alicia’s story
Juliet Archer
Juliet Archer writes award-winning romantic comedy for Choc Lit and Ruby Fiction. She has been known to spend many happy hours matching irresistible heroes with their equally irresistible chocolate counterparts – watch out for the dark nutty ones!
Her debut novel, The Importance of Being Emma, won the Big Red Read Book of the Year 2011 Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the 2009 Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. Her second novel, Persuade Me, was shortlisted for the 2011 Festival of Romance Best Romantic Read Award.
Juliet was born and bred in North-East England and now lives in Hertfordshire. She gives talks all over the UK and in the USA about the classic authors who inspire her work. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Jane Austen Society. Her non-writing career has spanned IT, acquisitions analysis, copy editing, marketing and project management, providing plenty of first-hand research for her novels.
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One Summer Weekend is great, feel-good book with characters you can’t help but love and although it’s a shorter book than I would usually read, I did love it. The pacing was great and both plot and characters were well developed. I adored my afternoon spent with Jack and Alicia. Their initial meeting doesn’t go well. Alicia needs to remain professional and objective and Jack’s reputation as a womaniser precedes him, but he gets under her skin to the point she doesn’t want him as a client, but is persuaded to. As we get to know the two of them better, my initial concerns about not liking Alicia were quickly overcome. When Jack takes her to the Lake District, it is clear there is a great deal of chemistry between them. This book had everything – great characters, great locations and great plot. All in all – a lovely Summer Weekend treat! Before now, I hadn’t read any of Juliet’s previous books, but she has such a great way of writing, I have downloaded her past books and look forward to reading more of her in the future!
Great story! Even before she meets him Alicia hates and despised her new client Jack. Why? Is he really such a villain? The changing relationship between these two strong but scarred characters is thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommend!
Alicia is an executive coach who draws a sharp line between her personal and professional life. Jack is her new client who is trying to crumble her defenses. Abby reluctantly thinks a weekend away will give her more insight, but will it give Jack enough time to show her who he really is?
I enjoyed this novel. Alicia tries so hard to remain impersonal, but Jack has so much depth she can’t help but be drawn into his world.
I was provided a free advance copy of this book in return for an honest review. I really enjoyed this novel and look forward to future ones.
When you look at the cover and you see the clear blue sky and it’s as if you can feel the sun on your face, you hear the birds sing and you can smell the flowers. It seems like there is no care in the world, but you know that with this kind of books, the road to a happy end is often bumpy and winding. Here it’s no different. After a game of attraction and rejection, a few misunderstandings and the much needed reconciliation, two people are reunited and live happily ever after. That’s what I like about this genre. No matter how many obstacles, love always wins. A nice read where the coachee learns from the coach and vice versa.
Wow! This is a full on romance! The lives of Jack and Alicia come together when she takes on the job of being his executive coach. Business and personal lives become entangled and, together with Alicia’s troubled past, give rise to many problems. The insight into coaching was new to me, but the Lake District and motorhoming familiar. I found this book to be a lively skein of a story. The final outcome was a surprise, I was having doubts about it throughout, but delighted with the ease with which it was achieved. A smashing book, well written and one I found very engaging.
A friend suggested that Jack would gain from the management of an Executive Coach to achieve his full potential as CEO of his family business. Now Jack, who’s a bit of a workaholic, has just taken over another company that will consume even more of his time, so I doubted that he would be able to pay attention to anyone’s advice. Alicia arrives as his Executive Coach, she has to observe and evaluate Jack’s business performance over a period of six months. Six months! Jack with his wicked sense of humour enjoys teasing Alicia, she seems to have swallowed a dictionary and is the ultimate professional taking herself entirely too seriously. Putting aside my irritation of Alicia constantly lecturing Jack, I thoroughly enjoyed One Summer Weekend, Jack became my hero, over-riding my initial skepticism of the plot.
I don’t know what it was about Jack Smith. From the off, when executive coach Alicia Marlow arrived in his office for their first meeting, instead of being irritated by his Jack the Lad attitude, he made me smile. On the face of it, he’s a lost cause: chauvinistic, smug, even patronising. He immediately clashes with Alicia, whose assessment notes don’t hold out much hope for him as a potential coachee. Despite deciding to walk away, Alicia finds herself forced to take him on as a client. Three years ago Alicia had a bad experience. Since then she has built a wall around herself. Jack so much resembles Troy, the man who broke her heart. This, together with his womanising reputation, colours her view of him and makes for continual confrontation. When she asks him to set up a meeting with one of his clients so she can see how he interacts with them he invites her for a weekend in the Lake District. Meeting Bill and his wife Midges leads to some surprising outcomes. I really loved this story. Alicia and Jack’s characters are so beautifully written. They clash continually, the sparks fly; the dialogue is sharp and at times funny. I guess the old adage ‘You Can’t Tell a Book by Looking at its Cover’ applies to both of them. There is so much they get wrong about each other, but it’s an entertaining route we’re taken on as they gradually discover the truth about each other.
I enjoyed this novel – a first from this author for me, but probably not the last! Alicia is an executive coach, who is called upon to work with Jack Smith, CEO of Leo Components. She had a bad relationship experience a few years ago, and Jack seems to be exactly the same type of man – a typical ‘Jack the lad’. She decides not to work with him, to hand him over to a colleague, but has to deal with him herself for a short time, which includes a working weekend in the Lake District – One Summer Weekend. And so the story develops. The book is an easy and pleasant read, I can recommend it.