Angie Annetts – Nudey Beach: One Hot Summer. The Shadow of an Ex

‘Nudey Beach: One Hot Summer. The Shadow of an Ex’ by Angie Annetts is a book that you will either love or hate. Me, personally? I LOVED it! I spent the majority of my time chuckling at Amber, the main characters, antics.

Amber discovers the sights and pleasures of a nearby naturist beach after leaving her abusive boyfriend, Clarke, and booking into a caravan site for six weeks. As she gets into a routine of working on her dreadful chick-lit novel, despairing at neighbours, boozy nights out and getting naked on the beach, Clarke sends her messages, varying between vile and begging forgiveness. 

As the summer unfolds and things get hotter, Amber’s fledgling relationship with a local artist begins to develop.

Yet there is always the shadow of Amber’s return to her flat – which Clarke is supposed to be leaving…
But when his messages abruptly stop, it leaves Amber to wonder if any potential danger was all in her mind?

A story in which Angie Annetts has cleverly interwoven subjects such as love, violence, humour by the bucket load and a truck full of pretty graphic sex. Altogether it makes for a fun story but, just underneath the surface…simmering away is Ambers fear. Fear of her ex, who she has given strict orders to be out of her flat in 6 weeks. She is staying at a caravan park and has kept the location from him, as she receives text after text from him. We can see that he scares her. The love for her ex-husband is clear to see and it was lovely to see the warmth between them.

I loved her perusal of the neighbouring caravans and the occupants, changing from week to week and her observations of them all had me in stitches. Her adventures on her ‘Nudey Beach’ for me were hilarious! Especially as I was picturing the old men she described and the couples using windbreakers to try to disguise their activities…and then the ones who didn’t even bother with hiding it! Her own activities on the beach raised an eyebrow but I still found them funny! Maybe if you are a bit fainthearted or just don’t like graphic sex in a book I would say stay away from this book. Her L shaped couch also sees activities and we learn about them as well.

All the while she is seriously writing a chic-lit story about Susie, even these scenes are funny. She dumbs down her writing and makes it appear that chic-lit is easy to write and because of that gives you the impression that it’s not even a proper book. This really gives us a glimpse of her own self-worth. Her back story is not a pretty one, as we see when we visit her ‘free thinking’ parents. Not even allowed to call them mum and dad, ever, at all…

An absolute gem of a book! An almost rollercoaster of emotions as we follow Amber through new beginnings, drama, sex and plenty of fun! I do hope Angie Annetts is planning another Amber follow up, I would love to return to her world anytime.

Thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours and Angie Annetts for the gifted copy of her book.