i finally return to nora roberts after this book put me in a 4 month long reading slump.. we try again though

island of flowers is an 80s romance novel about a french girl named laine simmons and a pilot named dillon o'brian (i know right? i can never escape teen wolf..). also it takes place in hawaii. i don't really know why, but it is good ambience. 

again i hated everything about this. these 1982 novels are all the same. also this one has a few microaggressions towards native hawaiians which i guess is par for the course here but jesus

laine's personality is so bizarre she starts off as fairly normal and then suddenly becomes barbara cartland out of nowhere. "you have no right to make love to me just because it amuses you", "i shall limit myself to pork and pineapple". is this because she's french? why does she talk like a victorian? french people can also speak casually. macron will allow it

at the same time that this is probably nora roberts' most "problematic" book of 1982, i was still kind of genuinely satisfied by the ending and liked the setting of kauai more than any of her other ones so far. i'm so excited for these books to become good as i read her more recent ones