Review Tuesday: Love, Legacy, and Little Green Aliens by Sadira Stone – #BeachTown #ContemporaryRomance #ReviewTuesday

 

Love, Legacy, and Little Green Aliens by Sadira Stone

Sadira Stone, 2024

Xander Anagnos is doomed to fail. That, at least, is what his prosperous, judgmental family believes. After several promising business ventures that have fizzled, he’s almost ready to agree. When he inherits the iconic but crumbling gift shop Souvenir Planet from his kooky Uncle Gus, Xander sees a final chance to redeem himself. He plans an entirely new enterprise, one that will give the tourists who are the economic lifeblood of Trapper’s Cove something they can’t currently find in the quirky little beach town. Certainly he has no intention of maintaining the shop’s dubious associations with tacky aliens and UFO enthusiasts.

Trapper’s Cove native Hannah Leone is determined to succeed. The deck may be stacked against her, and her mother may be ready to give up the community newspaper they’ve built together, but Hannah is not prepared to throw in the towel. Desperate to preserve all the intangibles that make the town special, she has the energy, ideas and brazen self-confidence required to save the Trapper’s Cove Beacon. All she needs is a bit of luck and a dynamite story. And the gorgeous Greek who has just arrived to renovate and restore the town’s beloved intergalactic emporium seems like the perfect reader hook.

Hannah and Xander are immediately drawn to one another, but it soon becomes clear that their visions for Uncle Gus’s legacy differ dramatically. Physical attraction and increasingly powerful emotion argue that they should be together, but even love might not be enough to reconcile their divergent views.

Love, Legacy and Little Green Aliens is the fourth book in Sadira Stone’s delightful Trapper’s Cover series (the third that I’ve read). The atmospheric small town on the Washington coast is almost a character in its own right, especially in this book where its traditions and individuality appear to be directly threatened. At one point in this story, Xander travels to Carroll Beach, another seaside community, looking for ideas for his new business. Ms. Stone paints a stark picture, contrasting that town’s manufactured, up-market vibe with the sometimes ramshackle but always genuine environment in Trapper’s Cove. We understand Hannah’s attachment to the town’s uniqueness. At the same time, we see that it’s impossible to stop change.

Sadira Stone’s romances always place her characters in a rich context that includes family, community and career. In that sense, they are far more realistic than many books in the genre. Love is essential, powerful, healing – but love in isolation is not enough to guarantee happiness. People need work that fulfills them and friends that support them. Ms. Stone’s books are as much about finding one’s place in the world as finding one’s special partner.

I adored both the slow burn attraction between Hannah and Xander and the explosion of eroticism when they finally come together. I also appreciated the realistic acknowledgment that great sex doesn’t solve every problem. Indeed, Hannah’s and Xander’s issues only become more acute after they become lovers, as their individual attempts to resolve the dilemma tend to undermine their mutual trust.

A dramatic twist and an unexpected crisis lead to a very satisfying happy ending. Sometimes when things appear hopeless, the universe intervenes.

Was there anything I didn’t like about Love, Legacy and Little Green Aliens? I did feel that the UFO/alien visitors angle was not adequately explored. Why did Gus believe that his shop was situated atop an intergalactic vortex? How did the UFO chasers find out about him?

Also, it would have been fun to see Xander’s stuck-up family melt a bit more at the end (and to eat crow!)

Finally, I was (very slightly) annoyed by the tropes proclaimed for this story. The two protagonists are only barely over forty. (Xander celebrates his fortieth birthday in the latter part of the book.) They’re adults but hardly “later in life”. I also take issue with the “rivals to lovers” trope. Rivalry isn’t what comes between them. Their differences are far more subtle.

This is emphatically, however, a beach town romance!

And I do recommend it, wholeheartedly.