Sunday, March 6, 2016

Review: Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne DeMaio


Genre:
Women’s Fiction

Format:
E-Book

Publisher:
Joanne DeMaio

Release Date:
March 2013

Source: My own e-book collection.







Synopsis from Goodreads

Escape to Stony Point, cuff your jeans and walk along the water's edge in this nostalgic story bringing old friends, and their lives, back to the sea.

After years of pursuing a denim design career, Maris Carrington never imagined trading her Chicago studio for a New England shingled cottage. But a forgotten home movie tucked inside a dusty attic box leads to an unexpected summer ... One of uncovering family secrets while settling her father's estate, one of inheriting a forlorn German shepherd, one of reconnecting with old friends on a weathered boardwalk, beneath starlit skies on a beach nestled in a crook of the Connecticut coast.

Her design career had become a shell, curving around her like the intricate whorls of a conch, shielding her until now. Until fried clam dinners and carousel rides beckon a lost love. But can Maris ever really go back? Can these beach friends ever be who they were to each other all those summers ago? Now one of her circle is dead; another unemployed and struggling in a tenuous marriage; another regretting a fateful decision; while one is missing a mother, ever seeking a connection she longs for.

To the backdrop of seaside cottages and a boarded up beach hangout, to the soundtrack of whispering lagoon grasses and a vintage jukebox, Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans asks if we can really design our own lives, or if our fate lies somewhere in the stars.

My Review

Even though I read this one during the dead of winter, it makes for a nice beach read. It’s emotional with a few twists I didn’t see coming. The characters are flawed and quite realistic. I can easily picture these characters in real life.  They are real people with real problems.

Overall, I thought the author did a great job in storytelling and bringing the readers right into the atmosphere of Stony Point. There were a couple of spots that seemed to move slowly for me, but I really came to care about these characters. I will definitely be reading more books by this author.



For reading challenges:
Women’s Fiction Reading Challenge 2016


2 comments:

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