Books & Spoons Review SKINNY DIPPING SEASON by Cynthia Tennent

One Summer Can Change Everything . . .

Elizabeth Lively dresses conservatively, straightens her curly hair into submission, and works hard to uphold her political family’s reputation. Her therapist might call it “OCD,” but she’s just trying her best to live by the rules—until her carefully crafted world comes crashing down when she’s fired, painfully jilted, and arrested for a crime she didn’t commit. All she can think to do is flee to her grandmother’s lakeside house in tiny Truhart, Michigan, a town that’s as quirky as it is quaint . . .

No stranger to second chances, Acting Sheriff JD Hardy isn’t pleased to have Elizabeth in Truhart for the summer.  A former city cop with a painful past, JD now runs a tight ship, and isn’t keen on a newcomer with a criminal past, even one as tempting as Elizabeth.

Between  lazy summer days and lakeside evenings, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, Elizabeth must decide what the future holds for her, and where her heart belongs. She will learn that sometimes you have to dip a toe in cautiously, and other times you just have to dive in . . .

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This story surprises me, in a positive way. It is a story of the summer Elizabeth had to face herself, learn to accept herself, just the way she is, faults and all. The journey she takes is not easy, the publicity of the journey makes it even more difficult to deal with. And it seems it follows her where ever she goes, and who she meets.
The story is told in first person point of view, and only from Elizabeth's side. In general, I'm not a fan of that POV, but it works here.
Elizabeth has so much going on with herself, the family drama seems to endless, and her reactions to its harmful. But this summer she learns to deal with it all in a different way. She takes chances, she dares to do things she never thought she would survive. She digs deep, and finds a woman in her, who is beautiful, passionate, capable, loved and needed. 
The community around them is like any small town unit in anywhere in the western world, filled with characters, unique, yet familiar, with strong characteristics, opinions, and convictions. 
J.D and Elizabeth are fun together. The understanding and support between them is adorable, deep, and loving. They get each other, even the oddest things about each other, and cherish them. 
A young woman takes a leap from her life, escape from the reality that gets to be too much, and ends up jumping into a different kind of real world, into a small town dynamics. During the summer she gets to know herself on a different level than before, learns to love and accept herself, and falls in love, finding passion in herself, she never expected. It is a sweet coming of age story, sort of. It is fun, in a way I didn't know if I should laugh or cry, and it is enlightening, seeing her and J.D is dealing with her dysfunctional family, and adorable when J.D and Elizabeth learns to know, accept, and love each other.
~ Four Spoons

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