Kirkus Reviews
A sparkling love story with richly depicted lovers and a sly comic sensibility.
A lawyer trying to dispossess the proprietress of a sleepaway camp ends up falling for her instead in Chase's fizzy romance.
She's Cricket Abernathy, owner of the run-down Camp Abernathy by gorgeous Lake Willa in the Poconos; he's Charlie Thorpe, a Philadelphia lawyer tasked with convincing her to sell the camp to his real-estate developer client-with a promotion to partner riding on his success. When Cricket rejects the offer, Charlie decides to look for secrets that could force her to sell by signing up for the two-week-long Comic-Camp for adult nerds who are into everything from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings. Cricket knows about his subterfuge, but lets him in anyway because of his granite jaw, muscular chest, and adorable dimples. Other campers include Adam, who plays a Sith Lord; Stefan, who dresses as a Viking; Hunter, who portrays a zombie from an apocalypse-set game; 11-year-old Olivia, who's a dead shot with foam-tipped arrows; Angela, a cougar on the hunt for a fourth husband; and Esther, an old lady who crochets plushie penises as gag bridal gifts. Charlie, who is basically a nice guy and a good sport, bonds with these oddballs and, smitten by her toned physique and infectious humor, falls in love with Cricket. Cricket reciprocates Charlie's ardor, and their relationship escalates from flirty banter to Cricket inspecting Charlie's genitals for ticks, thence to skinny-dipping and...nature taking its course. Complications arise when Cricket's old flame, Patrick, shows up. The situation worsens when Charlie discovers a lien on Camp Abernathy, giving his client leverage to take the land-and threatening Cricket's home and livelihood.
Chase's yarn follows a classic screwball-comedy formula, pairing a nervy heroine with a manly but menschy hero amid a constellation of loveable eccentrics in a narrative that's full of blithe, energetic contrivances. It's also a valentine to nerdishness and the pop-culture icons it feeds upon, spoofing them but also acknowledging their moral seriousness and relevance. ("Peter becomes a hero when he develops a genuine connection with others," Adam explains to Charlie in a rather pointed interpretation of Guardians of the Galaxy.) The romantic leads are complicated and unfinished, with Charlie needing to release the emotions that his judgmental parents forced him to suppress and Cricket unable to break free from the safe but isolating cocoon of Camp Abernathy. Chase writes vigorous, evocative prose that crackles with smart and salacious repartee ("Your hand is on my ass, Charles Xavier Thorpe....[e]ither that or this lake has a small octopus") and makes her characters, unlike many of the bland protagonists who populate romances, feel quirky, colorful, and alive. ("The memory of Cricket's laughter rings in my head. It was a wicked, bawdy laugh that ought to belong to a gangster's moll and not the bespectacled woman in the Tree of Mordor or Gondor or one of the 'dors T-shirt"). Readers will heartily root for Cricket and Charlie to get together and save their geeky paradise.
A sparkling love story with richly depicted lovers and a sly comic sensibility.
