The Sea Glass Cottage by RaeAnne Thayne
ISBN: 9781335045164
Publication Date: 3/17/2020
Publisher: HQN Books
Goodreads : Click
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 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.
I have spent most of my day reading this and after finishing it I will say that it was time well spent. I loved falling into this cute contemporary book. Normally I would find it hard to get into each character being that there is three perspectives in the book but after a bit I got the hang of each character and eventually loved seeing how everything was with that. There was clearly tension between Olivia and Caitlin but while Olivia was unsure why you get Caitlin's POV and seeing why she was like that. Then there was the mother to Olivia who was injured and has her own things going on that I wouldn't have know more about if it wasn't for getting to see what was going on though her perspective. Then there was the bit of romance that Olivia was getting during her stay while she helps out where she is needed. This was a pretty great book and if you are looking for an escape you might want to pick this book up because I found myself really enjoying this book and think you readers might be interested in this book too.
1
Olivia
shoved her hands into her pockets against the damp Seattle afternoon.
Nothing would take the chill from her bones, though. She knew that.
Even five days of sick leave, huddling in her bed and mindlessly
bingeing on cooking shows hadn’t done anything but make her crave
cake.
She
couldn’t hide away in her apartment forever. Eventually she was
going to have to reenter life and go back to work, which was why she
stood outside this coffee shop in a typical spring drizzle with her
heart pounding and her stomach in knots.
This
was stupid. The odds of anything like that happening to her again
were ridiculously small. She couldn’t let one man battling mental
illness and drug abuse control the rest of her life.
She
could do this.
She
reached out to pull the door open, but before she could make contact
with the metal handle, her cell phone chimed from her pocket.
She
knew instantly from the ringtone it was her best friend from high
school, who still lived in Cape Sanctuary with her three children.
Talking
to Melody was more important than testing her resolve by going
into the Kozy Kitchen right now, she told herself. She answered the
call, already heading back across the street to her own apartment.
“Mel,”
she answered, her voice slightly breathless from the adrenaline still
pumping through her and from the stairs she was racing up two at a
time. “I’m so glad you called.”
Glad
didn’t
come close to covering the extent of her relief. She really hadn’t
wanted to go into that coffee shop. Not yet. Why should she make
herself? She had coffee at home and could have groceries delivered
when she needed them.
“You
know why I’m calling, then?” Melody asked, a strange note in her
voice.
“I
know it’s amazing to hear from you. You’ve been on my mind.”
She
was not only a coward but a lousy friend. She hadn’t checked in
with Melody in a few weeks, despite knowing her friend was going
through a life upheaval far worse than witnessing an attack on
someone else.
As
she unlocked her apartment, the cutest rescue dog in the world, a
tiny, fluffy cross between a Chihuahua and a miniature poodle,
gyrated with joy at the sight of her.
Yet
another reason she didn’t have to leave. If she needed love and
attention, she only had to call her dog and Otis would come running.
She
scooped him up and let him lick her face, already feeling some of her
anxiety calm.
“I
was thinking how great it would be if you and the boys could come up
and stay with me for a few days when school gets out for the summer,”
she said now to Melody. “We could take the boys to the Space
Needle, maybe hop the ferry up to the San Juans and go whale
watching. They would love it. What do you think?”
The
words seemed to be spilling out of her, too fast. She was babbling, a
weird combination of relief that she hadn’t had to face that coffee
shop and guilt that she had been wrapped up so tightly with her own
life that she hadn’t reached out to a friend in need.
“My
apartment isn’t very big,” she went on without waiting for an
answer. “But I have an extra bedroom and can pick up some air beds
for the boys. They’ve got some really comfortable ones these days.
I’ve got a friend who says she stayed on one at her sister’s
house in Tacoma and slept better than she does on her regular
mattress. I’ve still got my car, though I hardly drive it in the
city, and the boys would love to meet Otis. Maybe we could even drive
to Olympic National Park, if you wanted.”
“Liv.
Stop.” Melody cut her off. “Though that all sounds amazing and
I’m sure the boys would love it, we can talk about that later. You
have no idea why I called, do you?”
“I…
Why did you call?”
Melody
was silent for a few seconds. “I’m afraid there’s been an
accident,” she finally said.
The
breath ran out of Olivia like somebody had popped one of those air
mattresses with a bread knife.
“Oh
no. Is it one of your boys?” Oh
please,
she prayed. Don’t
let it be one of the boys.
Melody
had been through enough over the past three months, since her
jerkhole husband ran off with one of his high school students.
“No,
honey. It’s not my family. It’s yours.”
Her
words seemed to come from far away and it took a long time for them
to pierce through.
No.
Impossible.
Fear
rushed back in, swamping her like a fast-moving tide. She sank
blindly onto the sofa.
“Is
it Caitlin?”
“It’s
not your niece. Stop throwing out guesses and just let me tell you.
It’s your mom. Before you freak out, let me just say, first of all,
she’s okay, from what I understand. I don’t have all the details
but I do know she’s in the hospital, but she’s okay. It could
have been much worse.”
Her
mom. Olivia tried to picture Juliet lying in a hospital bed and
couldn’t quite do it. Juliet Harper didn’t have time to be in a
hospital bed. She was always hurrying somewhere, either next door to
Sea Glass Cottage to the garden center the Harper family had run in
Cape Sanctuary for generations or down the hill to town to help a
friend or to one of Caitlin’s school events.
“What
happened?”
“She
had a bad fall and suffered a concussion and I think some broken
bones.”
Olivia’s
stomach twisted. A concussion. Broken bones. Oh man. “Fell where?
Off one of the cliffs near the garden center?”
“I’m
sorry. I don’t know all the details yet. This just happened this
morning and it’s still early for the gossip to make all the rounds
around town. I assumed you already knew. That Caitlin or someone
would have called you. I was only checking in to see how I can help.”
This
morning. She glanced at her watch. Her mother had been in an accident
hours earlier and Olivia was just finding out about it now, in late
afternoon.
Someone
should have told her—if not Juliet herself, then, as Melody said,
at least Caitlin.
Given
their recent history, it wasn’t particularly surprising that her
niece, raised by Olivia’s mother since she was a baby, hadn’t
bothered to call. Olivia wasn’t Caitlin’s favorite person right
now. These days, during Olivia’s regular video chats with her
mother, Caitlin never popped in to say hi anymore. At fifteen,
Caitlin was abrasive and moody and didn’t seem to like Olivia much,
for reasons she didn’t quite understand.
“I’m
sure someone tried to reach me but my phone has been having trouble,”
she lied. Her phone never had trouble. She made sure it was always in
working order, since so much of her freelance business depended on
her clients being able to reach her and on her being able to Tweet or
post something on the fly.
“I’m
glad I checked in, then.”
“Same
here. Thank you.”
Several
bones broken and a long recovery. Oh dear. That would be tough on
Juliet, especially this time of year when the garden center always
saw peak business.
“Thank
you for telling me. Is she in the hospital there in Cape Sanctuary or
was she taken to one of the bigger cities?”
“I’m
not sure. I can call around for you, if you want.”
“I’ll
find out. You have enough to worry about.”
“Keep
me posted. I’m worried about her. She’s a pretty great lady, that
mom of yours.”
Olivia
shifted, uncomfortable as she always was when others spoke about her
mother to her. Everyone loved her, with good reason. Juliet was warm,
gracious, kind to just about everyone in their beachside community of
Cape Sanctuary.
Which
made Olivia’s own awkward, tangled relationship with her mother
even harder to comprehend.
“Will
you be able to come home for a few days?”
Home.
How could she go home when she couldn’t even walk into the coffee
shop across the street?
“I
don’t know. I’ll have to see what’s going on there.”
How
could she possibly travel all the way to Northern California? A
complicated mix of emotions seemed to lodge like a tangled ball of
yarn in her chest whenever she thought about her hometown, which she
loved and hated in equal measures.
The
town held so much guilt and pain and sorrow. Her father was buried
there and so was her sister. Each room in Sea Glass Cottage stirred
like the swirl of dust motes with memories of happier times.
Olivia
hadn’t been back in more than a year. She kept meaning to make
a trip but something else always seemed to come up. She usually went
for the holidays at least, but the previous year she’d backed out
of even that after work obligations kept her in Seattle until
Christmas Eve and a storm had made last-minute travel difficult. She
had spent the holiday with friends instead of with her mother and
Caitlin and had felt guilty that she had enjoyed it much more than
the previous few when she had gone home.
She
couldn’t avoid it now, though. A trip back to Cape Sanctuary
was long overdue, especially if her mother needed her.
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