New York Times bestselling author Mariah Stewart returns to her beloved Chesapeake Diaries series with a charming beachside romance that is “everything you love about small-town romance” (#1 New York Times bestselling author Barbara Freethy). Always believing she was an ugly duckling, Chrissy Jenkins thought she had finally turned into a swan when her real-life Prince Charming swept her off her … Prince Charming swept her off her feet. But as his true character began to crack his perfect facade, Chrissy realized that not only was she better off without him, but that she was the only one who had the power to transform her life.
Returning to her ancestral home on Cannonball Island for a family wedding, Chrissy is reintroduced to a legacy she’d all but forgotten. In choosing to stay on the island, she reboots her life, successfully reinventing herself as a chef at Blossoms, an up-and-coming restaurant in St. Dennis. But despite her newfound self-confidence, she still doesn’t trust her taste in men. So when she meets Jared Chandler, a handsome ship salvager staying at the inn while he conducts a nearby recovery operation, Chrissy’s certain she can keep him as a friend–even though he’s everything any woman would want in a man. As fellow newcomers, together they discover the charm of the historic bayside town and explore the idyllic island.
But when Chrissy agrees to be Jared’s date for his father’s wedding, they embark on a weekend that will find them each seeing the other in a completely different light, one that will change their lives foreve
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This series has definitely had its ups and downs with me. But as I mentioned in my review of The Chesapeake Bride, I’m a big fan of the Cannonball Island stories and Ruby. The heroine of this story, Chrissy, is Ruby’s great (great?) granddaughter. The hero, Jared, is a salvage diver who works with Owen, Chrissy’s cousin who was the focus of The Chesapeake Bride. Needless to say, I really enjoyed this story.
There are parts to Chrissy’s story that just had me in tears. I’m not giving anything away to say she was in an abusive relationship…that’s established from the beginning. It’s not the abuse that tore at my heart, but more the aftermath. Things I hadn’t ever really thought of. As much as I am aware of the long-lasting psychological effects of being in such a situation, the scope of how that can play out when looking for a job or making friends hadn’t occurred to me. Mariah Stewart really handled Chrissy’s situation beautifully and taught me a thing or two in the process.
The relationship between Jared and Chrissy starts very slowly. In fact, the two of them don’t so much as hold hands for quite a while and insist they are “good friends” when anyone mistakes their relationship for anything more. It’s actually very sweet and romantic although neither of them means for it to be sweet or romantic. Their bond happens so organically and their feelings grow in such a natural way, it’s almost a surprise when you realize how enmeshed they are with each other.
As the reader, you know certain things are going to play out. I don’t believe the author means for it to be a surprise and she surely drops hints constantly throughout the story. As always, that is fine with me when the author makes it a point of ensuring the trip is a joy to take. And here, it really was.
I’m a huge fan of this author’s The Hudson Sisters series and my curiosity was piqued when Devlin’s Light was mentioned. Now I’m going to have to hunt down the books in her Enright series since they tie to both The Hudson Sisters and The Chesapeake Diaries. I’d love to go back and find out more about some of the characters I’ve met in all the books that I didn’t realize had their own stories.
**I received an ARC of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely**
https://allingoodtimeblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/30/dune-drive-book-review/
This is part of a wonderful series by Martha Stewart. It’s best to read them in order because there is a family that anchors the Chesapeake Diaries. You won’t be disappointed.
I just love this series! When Ms. Stewart first started writing books more set on Cannonball Island and less set in St. Dennis, I was kinda sad. Of course plenty of time was still spent in St. Dennis, but it wasn’t quite the same. But after 3 books set in Cannonball Island, I’ve really come to love it!
Chrissie and Jared were both brand new characters. Chrissie hadn’t been living on the island in previous books, so I had no previous opinions of her. Same with Jared. I liked both characters a lot, and thought they were a perfect fit.
Jared is a good hero. He’s skeptical of love and marriage because of his own broken family, but can’t help but fall in love with Chrissie! I really liked that while he was described as previously being a playboy, all that happened off page and he was tired of that lifestyle.
There’s one, half page sex scene that’s rather vague, in the second to the last chapter. There’s maybe two uses of any kind of swear words in the whole book.
Trigger warning! This book deals with domestic violence, Chrissie having run away from an abusive boyfriend. While there were some brief descriptions of a few of the ways he physically and emotionally abused her, there were no detailed scenes, most of them playing in her memory while she didn’t want to remember. Mild spoiler: Doug finds her in the end, slaps her and says he’s going to have her (he doesn’t use the word rape but that’s what he meant) then says he’s going to burn her place of business down. This all happens in a couple pages and is over quickly. I won’t spoil how Doug is stopped though!
I’m excited for the next book, which I’m assuming will be about Chrissie’s brother Luke!
3 Stars
Review by Kris
Late Night Reviewer
Up All Night w/ Books Blog
Mariah Stewart’s Dune Drive takes on the tough subject of abuse. Chrissy Jenkins went through some very tough times, with being in an abusive relationship for five years too many. She had low self-esteem because of it as well. While I was happy the author touched base on this topic, I felt there could have been so much more to it.
I would like to state this was a very hard read for me. I read the synopsis and was intrigued but later found myself bored with it. I did enjoy Chrissy’s bounce back into finding herself. Mariah Stewart has a lot of talent in the writing words department and if I was my mother’s or even grandmother’s age, I would have probably enjoyed the book a little bit more. It was just too perfect despite hitting a topic like abuse. I truly wanted to enjoy this book but I just could not connect. Well Written, but not for everyone.