Friday 25 August 2023

Book ~ "The Opportunist" (2022) Elyse Friedman

From Goodreads ~ When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Alana has been living a quiet life in Toronto with her young disabled daughter. She is estranged from Ed, her father, and Martin and Teddy, her brothers, so she's surprised when Martin shows up and asks for her help. Their father, Ed, isn't well and is getting married to his nurse, Kelly, who is about 50 years younger. Martin and Teddy feel Kelly isn't genuine and is just after Ed's billions. Alana could care less but Martin offers her money which would help make her daughter's life so much better. Alana heads out west to spend time with the family and make an offer to Kelly that they don't think she will refuse ... but things don't go as expected.

I liked this story and it took some weird turns I didn't see coming, which was fun. It is written in third person perspective depending where the action was. It jumps back and forth in time to give background as to why things are the way they are today. As a head's up, there is swearing and child abuse.

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