One Stormy Night

Lachlan Hart, founder of MindThrive AI (artificial intelligence), creates an algorithm with his best friend, Matteo, that takes off and makes them wealthy. Matteo is injured in a skiing accident, and Lachlan runs their dream company alone. He drives himself to succeed, by working efficiently and by cutting himself off emotionally from others. Charlie Middleton keeps Lachlan’s life ruthlessly organized and has given up her weekends, nights, and pretty much her life to help Lachlan succeed. Her aunt dies, leaving Charlie stunned. After abruptly resigning from her job, she rushes home to be with her mother and discovers she’s inherited property in Scotland. Lachlan’s life is upended with Charlie gone, and he puts all of his business deals on hold to fly across the world to Scotland to get Charlie back.

It seems somewhat unrealistic to think a brilliant, wealthy tech guru would travel to a remote island in Scotland because his administrative assistant leaves his employ. Nevertheless, that is what happens, and they end up stranded together on an island during a huge storm. This gives them the opportunity to really get to know each other for the first time, and both learn their assumptions about the other are skewed. Charlie behaves as an independent woman who knows her mind most of the time, but behaves with immaturity a couple of times as well. This strikes a discordant tone at times within the story. Regardless, the story is well-paced and the descriptions of the storm are frightening and well-written. Both of these characters mature throughout the story and figure out a way to become more fully aware!

Carey Sullivan