Review: Beneath the Surface by Annalisa Daughety

The second novella in Rainbow’s End is “Beneath the Surface” by Annalisa Daughety.

Madison Wallace grew up in the small town of Roach, Missouri, and has only been back once since she left twelve years ago. When she gets laid off from her marketing job in Atlanta, her sister, all excited at the prospect of entering the Rainbow’s Hunt geocaching hunt at the church together, invites Madison home until she can land another job. Madison hates the thought but needs to keep her savings intact so she agrees. She can send out resumes as well from Roach as anywhere. If she’d known that an escapade of her young nephew’s would take her sister away for half the summer, though, she’d never have agreed.

Grant Simmons retired as a bass pro fisherman and is now making his living as a fishing guide. He and his grandfather have signed up to do the treasure hunt together, but the first day’s hike proves too much for the old man. Grant’s grandfather and Madison’s sister convince them to join forces in the absence of anyone else to geocache with. Relucantly, Madison and Grant agree.

Madison doesn’t know about Grant’s pro days. All she sees is a back woods kind of guy with a rusty old truck, and she’s not impressed. All Grant sees in Madison is a city girl with a four hundred dollar purse–not that he’d have a clue if she didn’t tell him. Neither is looking for love, that’s for sure, but once they begin to see beneath the surface in the other’s life, the more they begin to realize love might have found them.

What will happen when Madison’s dream job in New York City comes knocking?

Although I read and critiqued this novella last summer just before we turned all the manuscripts in, I was surprised upon rereading it to see how much Annalisa had managed to build upon my novella, ahead of it in the collection, as well as foreshadowing the ones to come. Little things like Grant discovering tiny plastic castles in the caches at Ha Ha Tonka State Park amused me, and hopefully our readers will catch that (and other little tidbits) as well. If they don’t, they’ll still enjoy Annalisa’s tale, as the connection isn’t required to understand the story. It’s just a fun addition.

I’ve read another of Annalisa’s books before and really enjoyed it. I reviewed Love is Grand here. Check out her six novels if you enjoyed this novella.

Also you’ll want to follow along at the Romancing America blog as Annalisa shares her first geocaching hunt with the readers there one day soon. You’ll also find an interview with her as well as an excerpt of her novella. Keep tabs on that blog!

Annalisa Daughety, a graduate of Freed-Hardeman University, writes contemporary fiction set in historic places. Annalisa lives in Arkansas with two spoiled dogs and is hard at work on her next book. She loves to connect with her readers through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Do I need to say that I did NOT get this book from the publisher for the purposes of review, but instead got a boxful of them for the purpose of celebrating? 😀