TLC Book Tours: The Beach At Painter's Cove

I've been lucky to have had a lot of great summery books sent my way.  At some point I will be ready to read something beside a "beach read" but for right now, I am perfectly content to do some fun summer, reading.  And let's be honest.  There aren't a lot of beaches here in Iowa, so sometimes a beach read also fits the bill while I'm huddled under a blanket in the middle of January

Synopsis taken from Amazon:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Whisper Beach comes another heartwarming story of four generations of women who reunite in their crumbling family mansion by the sea for a dramatic summer filled with love, family, secrets and sisterhood.

The Whitaker family’s Connecticut mansion, Muses by the Sea, has always been a haven for artists, a hotbed of creativity, extravagances, and the occasional scandal. Art patrons for generations, the Whitakers supported strangers but drained the life out of each other. Now, after being estranged for years, four generations of Whitaker women find themselves once again at The Muses.

Leo, the Whitaker matriarch, lives in the rambling mansion crammed with artwork and junk. She plans to stay there until she joins her husband Wes on the knoll overlooking the cove and meadow where they first met. Her sister-in-law Fae, the town eccentric, is desperate to keep a secret she has been hiding for years.

Jillian, is a jet setting actress, down on her luck, and has run out of men to support her. She thinks selling The Muses will make life easier for her mother, Leo, and Fae by moving them into assisted living. The sale will also bring her the funds to get herself back on top.

Issy, Jillian’s daughter, has a successful life as a museum exhibit designer that takes her around the world. But the Muses and her grandmother are the only family she’s known and when her sister leaves her own children with Leo, Issy knows she has to step in to help.

Steph, is only twelve-years-old and desperately needs someone to fire her imagination and bring her out of her shell. What she begins to discover at the Muses could change the course of her future.

As Issy martials the family together to restore the mansion and catalogue the massive art collection, a surprising thing happens. Despite storms and moonlight dancing, diva attacks and cat fights, trips to the beach and flights of fancy, these four generations of erratic, dramatic women may just find a way to save the Muses and reunite their family.

 My Thoughts:

I haven't read anything by Shelley Noble before, and this was a great book to start out with.  After a little bit of attempting to figure out the various characters and their relationships, I was interested in the Whitaker family and rooting for them to be OK in the end.

I started reading this book as we left home for vacation yesterday.  I was still reading as it grew dark and I attempted to make out the words on the page, wanting to know how Noble resolved things. It's a good sign when you enjoy a book so much that you can read the entire thing in one sitting. 

The book is a bit predictable, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment.  Sometimes it feels good to read something that isn't full of big surprises and twists and turns.  

Noble sums everything up at the book's end, and I felt like the Whitaker's were in good hands.  I was happy that there was romance, suspense, and some family secrets to be uncovered, which kept me thoroughly entertained.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for providing a copy of this book for my review.  All opinions expressed are, as always, my own.

For more information, visit the HarperCollins website.