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Overview
Can you overdose on paradise? Chris Angostura already has. The scion of a prominent family in Freeport, he has nothing to lose - because he has nothing to gain. He doesn't need a job and he already has a yacht. With his lifelong friend Shark, the son of his former nanny, Chris spends his days sailing and diving, and his nights drinking and club hopping. Drifting with the current through the azure seas, Chris is a victim of too much time, too much money, and too much easy sex. And then Chris meets Robin - a conceptual artist and a stranger in his island paradise, as mysterious as she is alluring. The more he pursues her, the faster she retreats - until he realizes that she is in the Bahamas seeking an alternative cure for her rapidly spreading cancer. Robin is struggling to live, while Chris and Shark are killing themselves with their lifestyle. As Chris tries to love Robin, he sees Shark slipping deeper into the dangerous undertow of drug dealing. But before Chris can help either of them, he must first learn to love himself - to overcome his family's legacy of death, denial, and abandonment. A poignant romance, a tumultuous rite of passage, and a thriller about the invasion of Eden by drug dealers, Paradise Overdose is a moving first novel about the redemptive power of love and friendship.Synopsis
Can you overdose on paradise? Chris Angostura already has. The scion of a prominent family in Freeport, he has nothing to lose - because he has nothing to gain. He doesn't need a job and he already has a yacht. With his lifelong friend Shark, the son of his former nanny, Chris spends his days sailing and diving, and his nights drinking and club hopping. Drifting with the current through the azure seas, Chris is a victim of too much time, too much money, and too much easy sex. And then Chris meets Robin - a conceptual artist and a stranger in his island paradise, as mysterious as she is alluring. The more he pursues her, the faster she retreats - until he realizes that she is in the Bahamas seeking an alternative cure for her rapidly spreading cancer. Robin is struggling to live, while Chris and Shark are killing themselves with their lifestyle. As Chris tries to love Robin, he sees Shark slipping deeper into the dangerous undertow of drug dealing. But before Chris can help either of them, he must first learn to love himself - to overcome his family's legacy of death, denial, and abandonment. A poignant romance, a tumultuous rite of passage, and a thriller about the invasion of Eden by drug dealers, Paradise Overdose is a moving first novel about the redemptive power of love and friendship.
Publishers Weekly
Cocaine, cancer, art, racial and economic tension, childhood traumas and graphic sex receive equally sophomoric treatment in this debut, a wearisome tale of darkness beneath the blazing Bahamian sun. Contemporary Freeport is the lifelong home of Chris Angostura, privileged white heir to a Caribbean bitters fortune, and his black half-brother Shark. Best friends, the pair live in a state of constant debauchery, with Chris haunted by memories of their youth and of his mother's (possibly suicidal) depression. Shark, meanwhile, is becoming dangerously involved in the drug-trafficking underworld. Chris's passion for Robin, a conceptual artist and terminal cancer patient, inspires him to try to change all of their lives. The Bahamian milieu proves more interesting than any of the novel's characters, although Antoni seems preoccupied with his self-impressed protagonist. A lack of subtlety pervades the narrative, reaching its nadir in the overwrought dialogue that depicts the blossoming romance between Chris and Robin, two would-be aesthetes. These flaws, together with a callow 1980s sensibility, severely undermine the novel's impact. (Nov.)