From the New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne comes a brand-new novel for fans of Debbie Macomber and Susan Wiggs. RaeAnne Thayne tells the story of an emotional homecoming that brings hope and healing to three generations of women.The life Olivia Harper always dreamed of isn’t so dreamy these days. The 16-hour work days are unfulfilling and so are things with her on-again, off-again … work days are unfulfilling and so are things with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when she hears that her estranged mother, Juliet, has been seriously injured in a car accident, Liv has no choice but to pack up her life and head home to beautiful Cape Sanctuary on the Northern California coast.
It’s just for a few months—that’s what Liv keeps telling herself. But the closer she gets to Cape Sanctuary, the painful memories start flooding back: Natalie, her vibrant, passionate older sister who downward-spiraled into addiction. The fights with her mother who enabled her sister at every turn. The overdose that took Natalie, leaving her now-teenaged daughter, Caitlin, an orphan.
As Liv tries to balance her own needs with those of her injured mother and an obstinate, resentful fifteen-year-old, it becomes clear that all three Harper women have been keeping heartbreaking secrets from one another. And as those secrets are revealed, Liv, Juliet, and Caitlin will see that it’s never too late—or too early—to heal family wounds and find forgiveness.
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Great book
RaeAnne Thayne is such an engaging storyteller – great at writing female characters and delving into the emotional depth of relationships.
I hope she revisits this town and family.
4 1/2 STARS!
RaeAnne Thayne never fails to satisfy! With a treasured voice made for detailing heart-wrenching family drama in such a poetic way, she takes us on an emotional journey of strength, healing and forgiveness with her latest THE SEA GLASS COTTAGE and it does not disappoint!
From the start the reader is taken into the heart of three characters … a grown daughter returning home to help her mother through an injury, an aging mother who doesn’t like for one second that her body is betraying her and taking her away from her daily life and a moody teenager who’s trying to find answers to the mysteries of her past. Each character has a side to their story and we get a feel for what’s going on quickly and are soon hooked.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a story that connects with an imperfect family as they travel the roads of life. It’s emotional, it’s sweet and it’s oh so satisfying!
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. I am a huge fan of RaeAnne Thayne so when I got the chance to read her new book “The Sea Glass Cottage” I jumped at it.
Right off the bat RaeAnne did a great job of creating well developed characters. I honestly I think these were one of the best characters she has developed. They were very realistic, their emotions and reactions to each other were very realistic. I feel like any of them could be someone that I know.
In addition to the characters I really enjoyed the storyline. From page one to the very last page she had me hooked. It was full of romance, family, emotion, drama and sadness all rolled up into one.
I would recommend this book to readers who like contemporary romance as well those readers that like general fiction.
Favorite Quotes:
… she had seemed jumpier than a bag full of frogs.
Don’t make any jokes, but I really did fall and couldn’t get back up.
We’re all afraid, Olivia… You can’t make it through life without it. The trick is figuring out that the thing you need is just on the other side of that fear. The only way you can reach it is by going right through the center of it.
My Review:
While the premise of the story was interesting and topical, I struggled with this book and not that the writing wasn’t up to par, as the author’s writing style was easy to follow. My issue is more to do with my personal preference as high angst and constant discord just isn’t my jam, and this tale was heavily loaded with both internal and interpersonal conflicts as well as annoyingly stubborn characters. The storylines were relevant and relatable yet developed ever so slowly with considerable repetition and retreading of the five characters’ inner turmoil and protracted grief, which had me tapping my little foot while waiting for the tale to progress and the storylines to advance. It was at the 90% mark when all systems finally hit their boiling point and – Whoa Nelly! The secrets were uncovered and feelings were revealed at a rather furious and frantic rate as I thankfully hurdled toward that highly prized HEA conclusion.
Very fond of Raeanne Thayne, she has not disappointed in any book I’ve read. Makes you feel like you are there in the story.
The Sea Glass Cottage is a story full of secrets. This author never disappoints, and I really enjoyed this one. I definitely recommend it.
Told via three different points of view across three generations, this story about family secrets and the bonds that tie people together was engrossing and entertaining. The three women, Olivia, Juliet, and Caitlin, were each fully realized and not just generational caricatures. I also liked how the author drew parallels between the generations. This was the first time I have read this author, and I look forward to more. For a full review, please visit my blog at Fireflies and Free Kicks. Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for a digital ARC of this book.
Oh what a heartwarming read. It is a neat peek into relationships, family, friends and romantic love.
The part that really tore me apart, grab the tissues,was Caitlins quest to find out who her father was, she had lost her mother and now deep in her soul she is just a little girl who wants to know who her Daddy is.
RaeAnne is one of the many favorite authors I have. When I was reading this I couldn’t put the book down. It was a page turner with emotional parts that seemed to bring a family that fell apart back together. After loosing a dad because of a fire call and then a sister to an addiction. Olivia Harper felt like she had lost her mother because mom had to work at the Harper Hill & Garden shop Olivia felt like she had to be the perfect child. Help out around the house and she felt like she lost her mom the Garden Center and the baby of her sister. So she went on to college and made a life for herself. Was engaged but broke that off and was working 16 hours days to making a living. One day after she witness and terrible site she was in a coffee shop that got held up and she hid under the table and called 911. After that she had a hard time going in there. Then one she was waiting deciding if to go in or not her best friend call with news of her mom and that changed everything. She loaded her car and her dog and headed home to help take care of her mom. Who had fallen off a ladder and broke a hip and some ribs. She had driven all night to be there before the surgery. Her mom got after her niece for bit calling her like she asked. She dropped her dog off at her best friends and head to the hospital. Ran into the guy she had a crush on when she was in school. When she made it to the hospital her niece wasn’t happy to see her there. Her mom was glad she was there. Then as time went on she was falling in love with Cooper and he was falling in love with her. Caitlin was trying to find her dad through a DNA website. Juliet was falling in love with a friend of hers and didn’t was a relationship because of the MS . In the story was a tear jerker and I love every bit of it. This was hard to read with out putting down because it was written so fabulous. I would recommend that you will want to read it because I am stopping here and not giving the ending away. I hope you enjoy it as much I did. RaeAnne Thayne book is fabulous and very descriptive and very much worth reading.
I received a copy of this book from RaeAnne Thayne and HQN. This is my honest and voluntary review. Thayne’s books may make you cry, laugh, sigh, or explode with anger but in the end they will leave you with a huge smile on your face. Why do we think that an age difference in a man and woman make a relationship impossible? If the man is older it’s ok but if the woman is the older one – oh my god!, she’s robbing the cradle. Love comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, nationalities, and sexes. Who are we to decide what is right or what is wrong? This book is outstandingly enjoyable. I very highly recommend to all readers. Enjoy!
wonderful Book.
The sea Glass Cottage, By Rayanne Thayne
Another wonderful story by one of the authors I love.
Olivia is At home one day going
To her favorite Coffee shop, when a robbery
Is taken place..after the robbery Olivia finds going
To coffee shops a bit hard… to go many places.
Then she gets a call Her Mother has had a
Accident and she has to travel 600 miles to Northern California coast
She offers run her mother’s flower shop while she recovers.
Her 15 year old niece is also living with her mother..
Her mother has raised her niece since she was a baby her sister overdosed.
While being back home in California helping her mother her niece Caitlin. Has
issues with Olivia..
Caitlin is in search of her bio, dad but doesn’t want to
Say anything. To anyone except her best friend..
This Book was Truly a wonderful Read. I would Recommend it others..
Thank you Rayanne Thayne
And harlequin…for this arc.All Thoughts in this review aremy own.
I always look forward to reading RaeAnne stories. I love how she shares the POV of the different characters in the story. It gives a deeper insight to their journey along the way especially when there are a variety of generations in the story. The story always comes alive as I read them.
Let me start by stating that I generally love RaeAnne Thayne’s novels, especially her Haven Point series, and I wish I could the same about The Sea Glass Cottage, but, for a number of reasons, I simply cannot, and the best I can do is give it a 2-star rating.
I can usually read a novel of this length is one or two nights, but it took me a week to get through this one because I found that page after page after page, nothing of any significance happened. Olivia, the heroine, and I use that term loosely, was present during a coffee shop hold-up, hid under a table and dialed 911. She thinks that makes her a coward, which I found utterly ridiculous. What was she supposed to do? Attack a meth-crazed, armed lunatic with her coffee stirrer? Now, she’s avoiding all coffee shops, and turning herself into an agoraphobic–having panic attacks at the thought of being in public. As someone who has had panic attacks since the age of 5, why she chose not to seek out a professional mental health specialist made no sense to me at all. Yet, when she learns that her mother, with whom she’s had a troubled relationship, has fallen off a ladder, breaking her hip and several ribs, she takes a 12-hour drive back home in the middle of the night.
Once she arrives back home in Cape Sanctuary, her mother is less than thrilled to see her, and her niece, Caitlin, daughter of Olivia’s late sister, Natalie, is openly hostile toward her. Caitlin’s mother, Natalie, died of a drug overdose and Caitlin was raised by Olivia’s mother, Julia. Julia doesn’t seem thrilled to see Olivia either. Olivia is there to work at and run the family garden center while her mother recovers from her injuries, although she knows next to nothing about the business, and all of this plus her fear of public spaces, taking leave from her regular job, as well as trying to run her own social media business on the side is more than a bit much.
To add even more to the complications and drama in this novel, 15-year-old Caitlin is trying to find out who her father is using a DNA ancestry service. Juliet is falling in love with her widowed neighbor, Henry, who is 8 years her junior, but never expresses her feelings. Olivia is attracted to Cooper, who was her late sister’s best friend, and who lost his wife to cancer years earlier, and yet not one of these characters ever really communicates with anyone else–the story, told in alternating narration, was little more than these characters dwelling on their own issues without simply being honest about what they are feeling and why. All of these characters had secrets they were keeping that they simply hid rather than dealing with them. I could understand Caitlin’s need to know who fathered her, but her hostility toward her aunt, Olivia, was never really explored.
It’s hard to like a novel when you dislike most of the main characters, and when you think their behavior is utterly ridiculous, as was the case in this novel. I did like the only two characters who were open and honest, Cooper and Henry, but I found everyone else’s self-doubt, incessant worrying, and inability to communicate irritating and frustrating. and this novel just dragged on, and on, and on, with no relief in sight until the very abbreviated HEA ending. In fact, had I not requested an advance reader copy of this novel, and felt obligated to finish it, I’d have stopped reading it by the time I was halfway through it.
There are some glowing reviews of this novel posted here on Goodreads, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t add one more glowing review to them, but, for the reasons I’ve already stated, this novel didn’t work for me on any level, and I simply cannot recommend it.
So much of RaeAnne Thayne’s newest book is about secrets, but I think it’s more about the fear that led to the secrets in the first place. Once all the characters face their fears, they are able to spill their secrets and move on to the future. The Sea Glass Cottage is told from each of the characters perspectives, so there is a little repetition, but it’s not enough to rate this wonderful book less than four stars.
I read an advanced copy of this book
The Sea Glass Cottage by RaeAnne Thayne is and emotionally charged book. Set in a small town, we have to wonder if you can ever really go back home again. As always Thayne does a wonderful job pulling us into the storyline, the book was well written and action packed. I truly didnt enjoy Catlin very much, but that is ok we don’t have to enjoy every character in a story. I would recommend this book to others, especially those that enjoy a small town romance, full of heartache, angst, redemption and love.
I received an Advanced Readers Copy of the book from NetGalley and the publisher and this is my fair and honest review.
Wow. So much in this book.
Three women discovering that the secrets they are keeping from each other are not doing any of them any good.
Olivia had a horrific experience and then finds out something has happened to her mom. This brings her back to town. Such a complicated family dynamic that works the whole book to be sorted out.
Such a great story!
Engrossing is the one word I can use for The Sea Glass Cottage. I was so captivated by the lives of Olivia, Juliet, and Caitlin. There was so many secrets and pain between all 3 of these ladies. A mother, daughter and a granddaughter all trying to fix what is broken between them and things that are broken in their own personal lives. It takes an accident to bring these three together and even though there is a lot of emotional and personal pain, fear and heartache, they manage to work it out. It was a wonderful story.
*ARC provided by publisher for an honest review*
Olivia Harper has a great life, job and home in Seattle but when her mother is injured she has to go home to take care of her. While there she is overwhelmed with taking care of her mom, keeping her mom’s as well as her own business going and dealing with an angry niece. The only bright spot is her teenage crush, Vance Cooper, is now the town’s fire chief and he has turned into quite the hunk. Her plan is to go home as quickly as possible once her mom is better so she can’t fall for Cooper. After so many secrets come to light she is not sure where home is anymore.
A great story with all the feel goods of going home. The hero and heroine are strong and likeable with neither overshadowing the other. We have a wonderful group of townspeople who add such flavor and support to the story. The Sea Glass Cottage has so many wonderful layers to the plot and is so very well written. There are so many secrets that need to come to light as we follow the journey to healing between mother and daughter, and aunt and niece as well as past hurts that need to heal so life can go forward with the characters. The reader not only has one love story but several interwoven in this lovely story of second chances. No one writes a story quite like this author where the reader wants to move to the town and have the H&H as the best friends while getting to know the town and all its lovely people. I thoroughly enjoyed this journey to happy ever after!