ARC REVIEW: The Suite Life – by Portia MacIntosh

Title: The Suite Life
Author: Portia MacIntosh
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: April 16th 2024
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Finished reading: March 25th 2024
Pages: 280

“Sometimes, the little victories are the sweetest.”

*** A copy of this book was kindly provided to me by Netgalley and Boldwood Books in exchange for an honest review. Thank you! ***

REVIEW

I love a good romcom with a travel element, so it’s easy to understand why I couldn’t resist The Suite Life with its Hawaii setting and the surprise hotel upgrade angle. It sounded like the perfect fun summer romance, and I’ve been looking forward to join Gigi on her journey. And I have to say that I had a great time reading it! Fast-paced, entertaining and a closed-door/slowburn romance; The Suite Life ended up delivering an enjoyable romcom cocktail despite some minor niggles.

The story starts out in London, where we follow Gigi as she tries to find a date for her sister’s wedding. It has to be someone impressive, because her ex Nathan is the best man at the wedding and he dumped her for a famous influencer… Which leads to some hilariously bad dates and situations along the way. It’s true that these dates are definitely over the top and almost cringeworthy, but I guess they do work on an entertainment level.

Things improve drastically when Gigi arrives at the Hawaiian hotel. Hawaii makes for such a great destination wedding setting, and the descriptions of the hotel made for an excellent backdrop for this story. The whole hotel upgrade angle is probably my favorite part of the plot, as it leads to so many hilarious situations. The mystery around why Gigi was granted the upgrade adds a little intrigue to the plot, which helped keeping things interesting along the way. I do have to say that I saw the big ‘twist’ and real identity of a certain character coming from a mile away, which was a shame.

As for the characters… Gigi was fun to be around mostly, although I wish she would stand up for herself more (especially with Nathan and his new girlfriend). Nathan almost seemed like a caricature villain with his despicable behavior, and Sunshine wasn’t much better to be honest. I can’t believe Gigi’s family let them treat Gigi in the way they do… I loved Donnie though, and it’s a shame the slowburn was a bit too slow in the end. I could have dealt with that if it hadn’t been for the love triangle popping up, which definitely put a damper on things especially considering the connection between the first two characters was SO obvious. I could have done without the cheating element as well, which only made me hate a certain character even more… Even though everything works out in the end.

Like I said before, there were some minor niggles, but as a whole The Suite Life turned out to be a quick and entertaining romance read with a lot of bad dates and a great Hawaiian setting. It would work perfect for a beach or vacation read!