Bookworm in the City

After finishing the one book I had brought with me on holiday, I got to pick something from the hotel library. What a choice I made.

The story takes us to the make-believe island of Gordilla, where Miranda flees to because she needs some alone time. This island is a yet-to-be-discovered-by-the-masses destination so it’s quite and there’s not much happening. So little is happening, that Miranda decides to join an excursion into the jungle where recently discovered ruins can be visited. Within no-time she loses her group though and of course that’s exactly when disaster strikes: earthquake! The jungle floor opens up and swallows our heroine who lands underground in parts of the ancient city that is still in the process of being excavated.
One of the archaeologists working the site is trapped in the same space as Miranda is, and that makes this Nick Jago our hero. Miranda and Nick spend the rest of the day and night trying to find a way out, climbing back up to the surface. They entertain themselves by swapping stories of horrible childhoods: they both come from politically influential and wealthy families but had to grow up without their parents as they were raised by nannies and dropped off at boarding schools. For Miranda this ended when her parents died (their yacht sank) and for Nick when the story broke of his father’s love-child. Nick “rebelled” by turning his back on his family, and Miranda did so by wild partying. This resulted in a pregnancy and her considering abortion.
No need to get excited about a Mills and Boon going to this topic because just as this could have become a real conversation starter, Miranda’s pregnancy is ended by nature.
Even though there are so, so, many reasons for a woman to suffer a miscarriage, Nick’s first guess is that this was an ectopic pregnancy. Of course, this was exactly what Miranda suffered from and it has her in awe of Nick’s knowledge. Turns out, the archaeologist had a grandfather who was a doctor, and this grandfather once told a young Nick about a patient of his who had an ectopic pregnancy and that this was extremely painful. Why a doctor thought it okay to tell anyone this, let alone his grandson, is beyond me.
I missed a couple of paragraphs because I was still fuming over this stupid doctor and when I tuned back in Miranda was kissing Nick. It turns out this was not just a kiss, but a kiss-of-life and I have no idea what happened there because I refused to read back. In any case, this leads to Nick in awe of Miranda for saving his life.
Somewhere Miranda also told how after the miscarriage she spiralled out of control and it got so bad that her brother had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Again, great opportunity for some depth and interesting character development that gets entirely dismissed and ignored. This couple is so awful. Or is that not how you say it when two people are deeply in awe of each other?
After spending the night trapped in the ruins, they manage to climb to safety the next morning, dive under a waterfall and have unprotected sex. For real. But don’t worry, Miranda’s chances of getting pregnant again after that ectopic pregnancy are zero so there’s no way this could lead to an(other) unwanted pregnancy. Way to exploit that incident even further. Once fully clothed again they go back to town where people have been worried sick about them. Nick is tackled by an ex (she stole his discovery) and Miranda is taken away on a helicopter.
Two months later they meet in London where Nick crashes the viewing party of a Miranda’s new documentary. They walk out on the showing to find the young girl that features in the documentary but had gone missing. They literally lure her out of hiding with a bacon sandwich, adopt her and get married.

The pacing of this book was odd, with half or more taking place during the half day and night that the two are trapped underground. Then everything moves on superspeed afterwards.
Both Nick and Miranda are flimsy characters at best and their “oy me” attitude really got on my nerves.
It read very much like this book was an afterthought, that Miranda was a side-character in the story about her brother and that she could have been interesting. Unfortunately it got all flattened out and left without any sizzle.