Secrets at the Beach House

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain

https://www.amazon.com

Diane Chamberlain is one of my favorite authors, and this is her VERY FIRST book. It's been renamed and re-released (originally it was called Private Relations) but the foreword assures me that the author only added an epilogue and didn't change the original manuscript. I'm taking her word for that, since I can't verify it.

In this story, a young woman named Kit takes a new job at a hospital in a new town and moves into a large house in the beach with three other people who work at the same hospital: a married couple and another woman. 

There is a fourth roommate, a doctor, but he has been working abroad for a year, and Kit is decidedly nervous when he is due to come back. Everyone seems to love this guy so much, Kit knows, and she is worried that they won't hit it off. She is right to worry, because they actually hit it off a little too well and upset things in the house quite a bit.

This was a good character story, although it's not as wonderful as Diane Chamberlain's later books.

I also read by this author: Brass Ring

The Secret to Southern Charm

 Fiction by Kristy Woodson Harvey

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

The story in this book seems to have nothing really to do with the title; it’s about a mother, grandmother, and three grown daughters in a coastal Georgia town and the challenges they face. It also is apparently book number two in a series, although nothing in the cover identifies it as such. 

It was an okay story but not great. 

The Summer that Changed Everything

Fiction by Brenda Novak

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Fifteen years ago, Lucy’s dad was convicted of three terrible murders in their beachside hometown. Only seventeen and ostracized by her neighbors, Lucy changed her name and left town for good. But now she’s coming back to try to prove her father’s innocence…

This was an okay story but a little far fetched. 

That Summer

 Fiction by Jennifer Weiner

https://www.audible.com

When Diana was fifteen she went to spend the summer on Cape Cod as a mother's helper for a professor her parents knew at home in Boston. She had hoped to have fun and maybe even find love, but she came back broken and depressed, refusing to tell her parents what had happened to change her.

More than twenty-five years later another woman named Diana, this one nicknamed Daisy, is navigating a particularly difficult stretch of motherhood with her own fifteen-year-old daughter and wondering why she feels dissatisfied with life. Then she meets the other Diana, and discovers that maybe what she really needs is a friend.

But the reader can tell that there is something else going on under the surface of the friendship between these two women, and eventually a secret will explode to the surface.

This was a good story with great characters and I liked the realistic nature of the plot and resolution. Still it got a little heavy-handed and Big-Issue driven at times.

I also read by this author: Big Summer

Whalefall

 Fiction by Daniel Kraus

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Seventeen-year-old Jay Gardiner's father Mick recently drowned himself in the Monastery Bay, and Jay can't seem to get over it. Mick was actually a terrible person, but he was also something of a beloved local legend, known for his diving prowess and colorful personality. Since he and Jay had been estranged for over a year when he died, everyone in town knows that Mick died alone, and that it's all Jay's fault. (Or at least that's how Jay perceives things.)

Jay gets it into his head that the only way to honor his father's memory, and win back the respect of the town, is to recover Mick's remains from the dangerous depths of the bay. This is a truly bad idea, especially as Jay plans to go alone. But he's a seventeen-year-old kid, so he does it anyway.

This story is about Jay making that dive, and about all the disturbing memories of Mick that drive him there. It's unpleasant, and then it veers into unbelievable. I did not like this book.

Sandwich

 Fiction by Catherine Newman

http://barnesandnoble.com

In this story a family goes to Cape Cod for week in the summer, as they have done every summer for more than twenty years. There are two grown children and two elderly grandparents. Nothing much happens over the course of the week, but the point is the relationships.

This is an emotional novel from the point of view of an empty-nest mother, which is a perspective I can definitely relate to. I liked the book, and much of it resonated with me. I did kind of wish there was more plot.

I also read by this author:  We All Want Impossible Things

( I KNOW I've read this book, as I recognize both the cover art and the synopsis, but there is no entry for it in this blog. I must have forgotten to log it; how irritating of me! )

Drawing Home

 Fiction by Jamie Brenner

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Emma Mapson enjoys her job at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, New York, although it can be difficult when the summer rush is on. Working twlve-hour days makes it hard for her to spend time with her fourteen-year-old daughter Penny. But then an unexpected inheritance changes things for Emma and Penny forever...

This was a pretty good story. I really liked the characters but there were some plot elements that didn't hang together in my opinion.  

I also read recently by this author: The Forever Summer

The Forever Summer

 Fiction by Jamie Brenner

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Amelia owns a bed and breakfast in Provincetown with her partner Kelly, but on this particular summer she decides not to open the inn to guests. Little does she know that some guests will be coming after all, due to a DNA test match from a young woman claiming to be her grand-daughter.

This was a really good story with characters I enjoyed.

NOTE: I found this review of the book on b&n.com to be amusing. Apparently the book has "too much drama."

Summer’s Child

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

One very early morning on a North Carolina beach, eleven-year-old Daria Cato finds a newborn baby, alone and barely alive with its placenta still attached. She wraps it in a shirt and takes it directly to her mother, an action that saves the child’s life and gives Daria a baby sister named Shelley.

Twenty-two years later Shelley is all grown up and longing to find out where she came from. She sets off an investigation with the help of a local TV celebrity, but what will they be able to uncover after so long?

This was a great story with memorable characters and some amazing surprises.

I also read recently by this author: The Bay at Midnight

The Bay at Midnight

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In the summer of 1962, young sisters Isabel, Julie, and Lucy went down to the New Jersey shore with their parents, as they had every summer before that. But that year something terrible happened, and by the end of the summer Isabel would be murdered and Julie and Lucy would never be the same.

Now it’s forty-one years later, and some new evidence comes to light about Isabel’s death  now the whole thing will be raked up again. Will the truth be finally uncovered?

This was an interesting story with some surprises and great characters.

I also read recently by this author: The Shadow Wife

Secrets She Left Behind

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book is the sequel to Before the Storm, although the cover doesn't identify it as such. DEFINITELY read that book first, because this one gives away the ending to that one.

In this story, seventeen-year-old Keith Weston is still struggling to recover from multiple injuries caused by a church fire over a year ago. Then his mother disappears on the same day the person responsible for the fire is released from prison.

This was a very exciting story with some surprises.

Before the Storm

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Andy Lockwood is fifteen years old, but he seems younger. This is because he has developmental delays from FASD (fetal alcohol syndrome disorder.) But he still wants to fit in and be a normal teenager; that's why he goes to a youth lock-in at the local church. Then the church catches on fire, and Andy's unusual way of thinking helps him find a way out of the building and help save some of the other kids. Things turn dark, however, when it's discovered that the fire was deliberately set, and Andy is accused of arson.

This was a really good book with great characters. There were several surprises in store as well.

I also read recently by this author: Fire and Rain

Little Monsters

 Fiction by Adrienne Brodeur.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

As Dr. Adam Gardner, PhD, approaches his seventieth birthday, he doesn’t want to think about retirement.  In fact, he’s confident he has at least one more brilliant idea in him. The idea is out there, somewhere just out of reach; he can feel it. All he has to do is go off his bipolar medication and induce a manic episode. Wait, what?

Well, obviously this is a terrible idea, as either of his adult children could have told him if he’d let them in on his plan, but Adam has never considered anyone’s opinion besides his own. And now, just as his daughter Abby is gaining recognition for her art and his son Ken is gearing up for a congressional campaign, their father’s craziness is the last thing they need. Plus there’s a secret he’s never told them that is about to come to light…

This was a really good story with interesting characters. 

I also read by this author: Wild Game

Wild Game

Subtitled: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me.
Nonfiction by Adrienne Brodeur

https://www.audible.com

The author begins her story when at age fourteen, her mother woke her up in the middle of the night on vacation to tell her an exciting news: Mommy's having an affair!

For the next decade, the author is embroiled in her mother's romance as a confidant and co-conspirator, loving the attention she gets from Mom and hating the lies she has to tell everyone else. It takes her many more years to understand the incredible damage she's taken on, and I'm not sure she completely has worked though it even at the end of the story.

I also listened to recently by Audible Originals: Dragon Heist

Malibu Rising

 Fiction by Taylor Jenkins Reid

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the end of every summer in late-70's-early-80's Malibu, the fabulous Nina Riva holds a party, and everyone who is anyone is there. But August 27th, 1983, may very well be the last time. That night, the Riva party will go out of control and start a fire on Malibu beach.

This story is about that party and all the events leading up to it. It's a great character story about celebrities real and imagined.

I also read recently by this author: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

The Summer Girls

Fiction by Mary Alice Monroe.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was nice light read about three half-sisters who visit their grandmother at her beach house in South Carolina.

I enjoyed reading it. It's the beginning of a series, apparently, but I'm not sure if I'll follow up with the next book.

Here's to Us

Fiction by Elin Hildebrand.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

From the cover of the book, I was expecting a best-girl-friends-at-the-beach kind of story. And it was about three women who gathered at a beach house in Nantucket, but they were not on a girls' getaway.

The three women were ex(or almost-ex)-wives of a celebrity chef who had died unexpectedly, gathered with their respective children to scatter the man's ashes. This made for an interesting novel!


I also read recently by this author: The Rumor