Ponder Post: Lavender Island Duo

Reading a little bit of light romance is fun and a good stress reliever.  Within the past week I read two novels by Lauren Christopher. The Kiss on Castle Road ©2016 (A Lavender Island Novel Book 1) and Love on Lavender Island ©2016 (A Lavender Island Novel Book 2)

I have previously read, enjoyed and reviewed this author's first two books The Red Bikini (1/5/15) and Ten Good Reasons (5/17/15) both of which had seaside settings in California. 

The setting of the Lavender Island novels reminded me very much of Catalina Island off the coast of California about 30 miles from Long Beach. It was probably the model for this novel. I was only on Catalina Island for a few hours in January 2014 as one port of call on a Carnival cruise. There were only a few streets in a crescent shaped waterside downtown but it was scenic, quaint, artsy, and great for browsing. We learned locals got around via golf carts since car permits were few and far between. The interior is mountainous. I imagined Lavender Island from the stories to be much like Catalina Island pictured in the following photo. The fact that the characters in the novel also zipped around in golf carts was a charmingly coincidental image. I would like to go back to Catalina Island some day and these novels pseudo took me there.

The Kiss on Castle Road was set near the coastline of Lavender Island and the male love interest was a nerdy marine micro-biologist investigating illness in sea lions. Perhaps because of the nerdy scientist aspect, I preferred the first book to the second. In Love on Lavender Island the male love interest was a cowboy type and the novel is set in the center of the island where there is a ranch and a bison conservancy. After reading this and researching a bit I learned that there is also a bison conservancy on Catalina Island. I knew nothing about the interior of the island during our brief time there 2½ years ago so I am curious to return and explore more.

Unlike many man-bashing romance novels where the male lead is an a** hole who is tamed by the female lead, the guys in both these books managed to be gentlemanly without sacrificing the ability to exude an air of considerate but firm male dominance. They came across as strong without being too gruff and very respective of the woman they were attracted to. The requisite sex scenes were spicy and explicit but not gross; they were descriptive enough to be intriguing, but not written in the genre of X-rated blatant disclosure. 

Both these books were a fun read; predictable, yes, in where the two main characters would end up, but teasing enough to keep the reader wondering how the couple would get there. The novels were not very meaty, but then doesn't everyone love a few frosted cupcakes now and then? I will watch for other books by this author. She has the right recipe for me to snack on.

First Port of Call: Catalina Island

Tuesday, December 31, our port of call was Catalina Island. For this port there was no gangway and transportation to the island was provided by local boats that shuttled cruise passengers to fro. People walked down a set of stairs to board each tender, which held about twenty passengers. Here are Catalina as viewed from our yellow tender and Frank in the boat awaiting transport to the island.

This is our view of the harbor at Catalina Island en route there
from our cruise ship, Carnival Inspiration

Frank is gazing out at Catalina Island with our cruise ship in the background.

Seeing our ship from outside in the light of day gave me a better perspective and sense of orientation, something I seemed to crave for some strange reason. In the picture below our stateroom was on Upper Deck 6, which is the row of windows just below the red line. We were in Stateroom U125, slightly aft of mid-ship on the starboard side, the side opposite the one in the photo. Once I learned that odd and even numbers were on opposite sides of the ship and that the numbers increased from bow to stern I could make my way about much better since the stateroom hallways all looked alike. The galley was on Atlantic Deck 8 in the windowless section mid-ship above the red line. It stretches the full width of the ship and is accessible and passable to crew members only. Again, once I realized this, I was much better at knowing which elevator or stairwell to take to get to where I wanted to be. Deck 3 was the launching level for the boats to shore.

As we head toward the island we look back and get an overview of our cruise ship.
noting the four levels of staterooms. Above them are the galley, lounges, dining, pool, theaters, shops, etc.

Catalina was a picturesque seaside town. The weather could not have been better. Noticing the very light traffic I wondered if only the wealthy could afford cars since they would need to be transported to the island in some way. I asked a shop keeper about that and she said you needed a permit to have a car and they were rationed and hard to get, saying "Somebody has to die or donate you a permit in order to get one." A lot of the locals use electric golf carts to get around. We strolled through some shops and then walked around the harbor area on a small path (to the left in the photo below, and out to the Avalon Museum situated on the ground floor of the round Casino Building.

I copied this picture of the Catalina harbor from Google because it was such a great overview.
We did not walk far enough up the hillside beyond the town to get such a panoramic shot.

From our vantage point at the Casino building we could look out at our Carnival Inspiration ship and across the harbor to the town.

Beyond me is the Carnival Inspiration awaiting our return.

Beyond Frank is the harbor, the quaint shops at sea level, and the housing on the hillside.

We returned to the shop area for a bit and decided to have a late lunch back on board the ship. The night would be a late one, being the New Year's Eve celebration, and we wanted some down time in the afternoon before the formal festivities of the evening.