Liz Alden, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-954705-01-2
Contemporary Romance, 2021
Blessed with a break before she starts her new corporate job, our Australian heroine Lila Ryan decides to go for a vacation: sailing down the Panama canal. Sounds great, right, especially when she bumps into two hot guys that are more than capable of navigating her canal and weathering her through the storm. Oh, don’t get too excited, this is a new adult story—short hand for good old contemporary romance, only with first person point of view—not a torrid erotic romance featuring every lad in the marina. The bloke that ends up sailing through is pretty obvious when one reads the official synopsis of the story, though.
Now, how much one enjoys Liz Alden’s The Hitchhiker in Panama will hinge on how much they enjoy listening to leisurely vacation stories. When I see the cover art with that title, and when I read the synopsis of the story, I envision fun adventures, maybe thrilling rides or adventurous hikes, perhaps even skinny dipping and hot monkey sex in front of a waterfall or something. Hey, if our heroine and her adventurer boyfriend encounter smugglers or clues to a hidden treasure, even better. I’m still stuck in lockdown, so I’m game for any story that takes me on fun, wacky adventures to faraway places.
This one, though, is like listening to a friend narrate her leisurely vacation where it’s smooth sailing from start to finish. Language barrier is not an issue as Lila immediately encounters a friendly couple that invite her to stay on their boat. I am momentarily distracted by how Lila is at first wary of getting onto a boat with a stranger, until she learns that there is also a woman on the boat, and then she happily hops on board. We all know that women are incapable of drugging you and stealing your internal organs while you are knocked out, after all. Anyway, from that point, there is never any bump on Lila’s happy, placid adventures in Panama.
Even the romance is placid. Oh, he’s so hot, but our heroine has no time for flings. Yes, she’s on a vacation, she’s single, but she doesn’t think a fling has any place in her plan. Why? I can only guess that this must be some kind of effort on the author’s part to make sure that Lila doesn’t come off as skanky to some readers out there. Because the story is from Liz’s point of view, the guy doesn’t get much chance to develop into something more three dimensional, but Lila herself doesn’t have much memorable trait either. She’s more like the reader’s placeholder, instead of a character in her own right.
In the end, this vacation is a little too easy and comfy to make for an interesting reading experience. Sure, I’d love a placid holiday that has everything go as planned, but at the same time, such a holiday can be a bit on the ho-hum side when I’m reading about it from the comfort of my couch. I’m so happy for Lila and her man, and in many ways, this is a pleasant comfy read that doesn’t generate too much excitement on the nerves or anything… sigh. I could use a little of that excitement that isn’t present here, you know.
Anyway, I guess I just have to keep looking for that grand vicarious escape.
