Review: A Home By the Sea

A Home by the Sea (Hqn)

About the Book:

Grace Lindstrom has followed her fiancé across three continents, starry-eyed and full of dreams. But when he dies in a plane crash, Grace discovers that their life together was the cruelest kind of lie—and swears to never lose herself to that kind of love again. Until one night, when a chance encounter leads her to the kind of man she's always dreamed of—and the deep family ties she's never known.

Noah McKay knows he can't offer Grace any kind of future—not when he spends every day putting his life on the line. But when Grace's grandfather suddenly falls ill and she's called home to the small island town where she grew up, he realizes he can't live without her. Aided by good knitting, good chocolate and deep friendship, Grace is slowly learning to trust again—but can she learn to love a man whose secrets run so deep?

My Comments:
Three young women who grew up together.  Three young women who were young when they lost their parents.  The first found love in The Knitting Diaries (my review); the second finds love in this book, and I'll bet I know who the guy will be in the third book.  As is true of many series books, there are things that happen in this one for no apparent reason, but if you realize another book is coming, then they make sense.

It's a romance novel, a quick enjoyable read with a pretty basic plot.  She writes about cooking and travels around the world doing research.  She was engaged to be married by her fiancee died.  Shortly thereafter she learned that he regularly cheated on her so she's twice burned.  He defuses bombs for a living, for some top-secret government department, so he can't tell folks exactly what he does.  He is on call frequently and has to go where the job sends him.  He has had lots of women but no love.  They meet when he sees her rescuing kittens from a dumpster and basically it is love at first sight for both of them, though they fight it.  They are both loving people who love their families and are willing to sacrifice for them.

There is one moderately graphic romantic scene and it happens outside of wedlock.  Its funny, the book mentions that he has no trouble getting women to share his bed, but that they know going in that it isn't serious.  He meets her and courts her attentively for a few weeks, even going across the country to see her.  At that time, just a few weeks after they meet, he uses his body to tell her what he cannot say.  I have to wonder, if he falls into bed that easily and that indiscriminately, what does his body say?  He may be technically proficient in such activities, but how can you communicate something special with an activity you will do with anyone--but that's just the old-fashioned Catholic in me speaking.

I'd like to thank the publisher for sending me a review copy of the book via NetGalley.  I was not obligated to write a positive review.  Grade:  B.