Lip Loch – Ann Malley

Published by: Staycation Press
Date Published: 28/05/2021
Date Read: 09/06/2021

Opposites aren’t always as different as they appear. But secrets can be so embarrassing.

Cheeky Scottish Tour guide Vanessa “Nessie” McTavish detests nonsense. Like her nickname. But national pride and the family business keep her perpetuating the Loch Ness monster myth…until a white lie blossoms into something impossible to endure. Much like the unbearable Dennis Craig, an idiot ‘blind-date” Vanessa is determined to ditch.

Wannabe myth buster, Dennis Craig, proud nerd with admittedly odd fashion sense, can’t stand the family television franchise that makes it seem like he believes anything. He doesn’t.

He will debunk this new ‘Lip Loch’ farce that has turned Loch Ness into the next best place to get kissed. By the closest pair of available lips. Unfortunately, the lips tempting Dennis belong to Vanessa.

Will opposites explode or expose themselves to find love?

Thanks to Ann Malley for providing me an ARC of this book to read in exchange for an honest review.

[CONTAINS SPOILERS]

Firstly I’ll say I didn’t know this was part of a series and these characters were already known, so I was thrown in blind in regards to who the main character of Nessie was.

And also, I do not like short stories. Would I have wanted to read this if I’d known it was a short story? I’m not sure. Traditionally, I do not read short stories. They don’t grab me. But I am meant to be expanding my reading horizons.

The main reason I dislike short stories is that, due to the short word count, there’s no time for any preamble or setting up (then again, if there were previous stories in a series, this might have already been done in another book), so you’re just thrown into everything and you have to quickly figure out who is who and what’s going on.

I found myself very confused as to which characters I was meant to be focussing on, what their history was, and what they were doing. It seemed very rushed – the main characters seemed to go from complete disinterested strangers to making out on a rock. It all seemed to happen very quickly. Maybe that’s what a short story needs, but unfortunately it wasn’t my kind of enjoyable reading.