About the Book
In the wake of her husband’s sudden death, Cassie Costas finds her relationship with her teenage stepdaughter unraveling. After their move to historic Tarpon Springs, Florida, Savannah hates her new town, her school and most of all her stepmom, whom she blames for her father’s death. Cassie has enough to contend with as she searches for answers about the man she shared a life with, including why all their savings have disappeared.
When Savannah’s rebellion culminates in an act that leaves single mother Amber Blair and her sixteen-year-old son homeless, Cassie empathizes with the woman’s predicament and invites the strangers to move in. As their lives intertwine, Cassie realizes that Amber is hiding something. She’s evasive about her past, but the fear in her eyes tells a darker story. Cassie wonders what the woman living under her roof is running from…and what will happen if it finally catches up to her.
My Comments:
Emilie Richards is one of the authors whose books I read when I find them, and there is a good reason for that--for the most part I've enjoyed them and found them to be my type of books. When The House Guests came across NetGalley I missed it because the cover didn't look like the kind of book I usually read and I didn't notice the author's name. Then I saw people starting to talk about it, so I went and grabbed it.
On the one hand, I don't usually read suspense or mystery books, so I don't really know what normal expectations are, but this story had two major plot lines and I found the resolution of one to be unrealistic. As noted above, the reader learns early in the story that Amber is running from something--we just do not know what. When we learn and when that whole plotline resolves, I just didn't find it believable. Maybe that's because this isn't my usual genre.
The other plotline is Cassie learning that her late husband cleaned out their retirement accounts not long before he died and trying to find out why. I found the resolution of this plotline to be very believable.
Emilie Richards' strength as a writer is her characters, and that holds true in this book too. Cassie's grandmother was my favorite.
A lot of Richards' books have strong romantic subplots. The romance is there in this book but it isn't a major factor and in the end, it isn't HEA, but rather, the suggestion that HEA will happen eventually.
I'd like to thank the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley. Grade: B
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