GoodReads Monday

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren's Page Turners. To take part, you simply choose a random book from your TBR and show it off. Don’t forget to check out her blog and link back to Lauren’s Page Turners.

I read the first book in this series two years ago and this one has continued to sit on the 'please read me' bookcase every since.  I love Luanne Rice (or at least the books of hers I've read so far but still...) so this shouldn't be too difficult to work into my reading rotation.  I say this as I have about 10 review books waiting impatiently for their turn as well...but ya know.

On the windswept coast of Nova Scotia, two friends and their young daughters have found refuge in the rugged community of Cape Hawk. Lily Malone and nine-year-old Rose are making a new home with a man who will do whatever it takes to protect them. Marisa Taylor and young Jessica are beginning to recapture the music that once filled their world with joy. But now a stranger from faraway New England has made his way to Cape Hawk, bearing secrets from the past and news of an uncertain future. And each woman will face choices that will irrevocably shape all the seasons to come --- between lives left behind, mysteries unsolved, and loves that must be reclaimed or abandoned forever ...

Go to the bookshelf and pick a book you still need/want to read and share it below!

BOOK REVIEW: Firefly Beach by Luanne Rice

Under the summer sky, anything is possible....

Author of the acclaimed novels Cloud Nine and Follow the Stars Home, Luanne Rice returns with another moving portrait of a family in crisis—as three sisters come face-to-face with the past and find in each other the courage to go on.

Coolly sophisticated and steadfastly single, Caroline Renwick has always been the sister everyone could count on. As she and Clea and Skye gathered at Firefly Hill, their childhood home, Caroline thought that they had all put the past behind them. But as summer gets under way, a mysterious man arrives—a man who has the power to bring it all back....

Joe Connor was only six when his father died at Firefly Hill. Though he and Caroline had never met, the five-year-old girl reached out to him. They became pen pals and friends, until a teenaged Joe finally learned the truth about what had happened to his father that night. Now, after years of silence, Joe is suddenly here ... and Caroline still feels a connection. But she can't help but wonder if this handsome man holds the key to her family's healing—or its destruction. And in his presence, how long will she be able to guard her heart?

'Firefly Beach' is not my first Luanne Rice novel and I seriously doubt it will be my last.  Truth is I know it won't as there are more sitting on my bookshelf right now waiting for me to choose one.  I really enjoyed the story, liked the characters and at times wanted to beat their heads, or mine, into a wall.  Set in New England three sisters live their adult lives in the shadows of the past.  Being the children of a famous artist just adds flavor.  Three separate women living three separate lives all in the shadow of each other.  While living under a cloud of the past that they, and their mother, cannot seem to spread beyond.

At times I literally wanted to bash heads.  Someones.  Anyones.  I got so frustrated with everyone alluding to and talking around these horrible things that had happened to shape who each sister had become.  Rarely did they actually talk about it.  Work through it.  They talked around it.  And that made me want to bash heads.  But it also made me actually think.  Not something you expect from what you picked up and anticipated to be a beach read.  How often does each and every last one of us tiptoe around our own stories.  How often do we talk around, walk around, think around those big tings that helped to create who we are, flaws and all?  Instead of dealing with it, moving past it, and filing it into the bin of done and over with thanks for the experiences and the knowledge. I am just as guilty as the next person of letting the big stuff continue to dominate my choices and decisions instead of learning from it and then moving forward. We are all guilty at some point of letting our pasts dictate our futures.  Rice did an excellent job of telling the story so the reader knew what was going on while also playing out these all to human circumstance.  I think of all the girls, Skye and their mother gained the most throughout this novel.  They gained self-respect, they gained a sense of self and in the mother's case she gained a sense that she was enough for her daughters in the best way she could be at any given moment.  Not necessarily what they wanted or even needed but she was enough.

I'm glad I own this book because it is one I would read again.  I also think that it is one that in re-reading you will pick out more things that were missed the last time around.  I have to apologize for thinking that 'Firefly Beach' was just a beach read, and not because of the title.  It's a book that makes you want to bash heads but also makes you think.  If you really think you can find the parallels, in thought process if nothing else, to yourself and others you know.  Hopefully through the characters' growth you might just find a little bit of growth for yourself as well.

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About Luanne Rice

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-two novels including THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF SISTERS, her first YA novel. Five of her books have been made into movies and mini-series, many have been New York Times bestsellers and two of her pieces have been featured in off-Broadway theatre productions. She divides her time between New York City and the Connecticut shoreline.

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BOOK REVIEW: Summer's Child by Luanne Rice

THERE'S A PLACE IN OUR HEARTS RESERVED FOR MIRACLES...
From Luanne Rice, the celebrated author of"Beach Girls" and many other" New York Times "bestsellers, comes this powerful novel of a mystery, a love affair, and a bond that cannot be broken set in a seaside town where miracles are made..."
"On the first day of summer, Mara Jameson went out to water her garden-and was never seen again. Years after her disappearance, no one could forget the expectant mother whose glowing smile had captured the heart of everyone who'd known her: Maeve Jameson, still mourning the loss of a granddaughter she had struggled to protect...Patrick Murphy, a dogged police detective obsessed with a vanished woman...and Lily Malone, drawn to the rugged beauty of the Nova Scotia coast and its promise of a new life.
Here Lily hopes to raise her nine-year-old daughter, Rose, far from the pain and loss of the past. Here she will meet a gifted scientist, Liam Neill, whose life is on a similar trajectory from heartbreak to hope. And before the season is over, Lily will find the magic that exists in people we love the best...the everyday miracles that can make the extraordinary happen anywhere.

I liked this book.  I really did...mostly.  'Summer's Child' by Luanne Rice was an interesting fast read.  While I would initially classify the novel as chick lit it also had a touch of intrigue and a touch of romance. 

Set it present day Canada in Cape Hawk, the end of the earth, Lily and her daughter Rose have made their lives there.  As Marissa and her daughter Jennifer arrive things are changing for Rose as she anticipates a major surgery for her heart defects.  Marissa and Jennifer are on the run, so to speak, to escape a husband/step-dad that terrorized them.  A story that Lily understands as she was hiding out when she arrived very pregnant with Rose.  With the support of the Nanouk Girls of the Frozen North Lily had carved a support system of friends for herself and Rose. Marissa and Jennifer are embraced by these same women as their own as well.

The story flowed well and the characters were 'mostly' believable.  Marissa trusted Lily and the Nanouk girls with her own secrets.  I have a hard time believing in a character that has run away from what Marissa has run from and suddenly surrounded by other women she tells them things about her situation.  Having gone so far as to change names and even birthdays I don't see some of those secrets start to unravel on a first meeting.  The mystery twist I figured out before it was revealed but it wasn't contrived or followed a 'formula' so that does not detract from the story for me.  I did feel the romance was a bit contrived however.  I am interested in getting my hands on the next book with these characters to see how it all plays out.

I rated this book 4 stars because there was some parts that felt contrived and and weren't completely believable.  I enjoyed this book however and would read it again.

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About Luanne Rice

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-two novels including THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF SISTERS, her first YA novel. Five of her books have been made into movies and mini-series, many have been New York Times bestsellers and two of her pieces have been featured in off-Broadway theatre productions. She divides her time between New York City and the Connecticut shoreline.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | Goodreads