Published by Random House - Ballantine Genres: Family, Literary Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction
Format: ARC
After their mother’s death and their father deep grief, Willa Lakey was left to raise not only herself but her younger siblings, Harper and Lucas. Then her sister Harper was diagnosed with Cancer and once again, Willa put her life on hold to nurse her sister through it. Now Willa runs a successful bakery/coffee shop and life is beginning to show promise. She has a customer who has turned her eye, and her business is growing strong. The only thing that stresses her out is her sister’s insistence in pushing herself with a goal of climbing Mount Rainier.
Sean O’Malley is a freelance photographer who is a frequent customer at Willa’s coffee shop and bakery. He is quite smitten with her and hopes she is willing to take a chance on a man who travels often for work.
This is family and romance Debbie Macomber style. I do not read her books often, but when I do, I always enjoy them. In this book she covers several topics: stray animals, starting over, being your own boss, going after your goals, coping with loss, cancer, death, and of course, walks along the beach.
As always, she sucked me in with her likable characters, engaging and riveting plot, a bandit dog, and compelling storytelling. This was a fast read for me as I wanted to know what was going to happen. I was the proverbial fly on the wall watching as the various characters each had their own relationship issues and challenges. Willa became a parentified child when her Mother died and has sense struggled with being less of a mothering figure and more of a sister to her siblings but especially her sister, Harper. I thought Macomber handled this very well.
Fans of Macomber will be incredibly happy with this book. She does handle tough subjects with grace. Fans of Macomber also know she does not use excessive language or gratuitous scenes in her books. Romance books are all about the journey as we typically know how the book is going to end -even though the ending is predictable, it was enjoyable and just I wanted. My only complaint is that with most romance books – after they work out the conflict there is that rushed ending. Nothing in this book felt rushed until the very, very end. Which of course was upsetting because I wanted to spend just a little bit longer with these characters. Otherwise, this was a solid book which had me reaching for the Kleenexes and wishing I had on my waterproof mascara.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.