Beach House Rules

Bonds of family, friendship, and community bind an engaging story about how a mother and daughter put their lives back together after a scandal rocks their family.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey sensitively traces how a mother and daughter scramble to steady and rebuild their lives. 

The story takes place in Juniper Shores, a charming, “beautiful Southern coastal town” where the New York-based Sitterly family--Bill, Charlotte, and teenager, Iris--took refuge during the Covid-19 pandemic. For three years, the Sitterlys called idyllic Juniper Shores home. Bill worked remotely. But when Bill is accused of securities fraud--serving jail time while maintaining his innocence--Charlotte and Iris are left homeless and destitute, unable to even access family finances. This leaves Charlotte to suffer a meltdown at the bank, where she is calmed by a local woman, 45-year-old widow, Alice Bailey, who befriends Charlotte and Iris. 

Alice--whom local gossip sites claim might’ve killed her three previous husbands--invites them to come and live with her, as she shares her big beach house, a former B&B, with other women who face troubles of their own. This includes Julie, Alice’s niece, a journalist and single mom. And Grace, a divorced mom who is also a social media sensation. This small tribe of strangers keep house and support each other. The shared living arrangement--deemed a “mommune,” like a commune, something of a “lost ladies’ hostel"--offers stability for Charlotte and Iris. But complications ensue when the past resurrects and comes calling again. 

Woodson Harvey (A Happier Life) plots exciting turns via many story threads. Alternate points of view, along with elements of mystery and romance, make for a greatly entertaining story that will appeal to a wide audience.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster), $28.99 hardcover, 9781668074800, 368 pages

Publication Date: May 27, 2025

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

 

Link HERE to learn more about Kristy Woodson Harvey

The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

A wildly fun road trip adventure about an unpredictable octogenarian, with a secret past, who goes on the lam with her 20something caretaker.

Colleen Oakley takes readers on an off-beat, whirlwind road trip adventure--with an underlying serious message--in The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise.

 

Louise Constance Wilt is an unpredictable, whip-smart, Atlanta, Georgia native. With the 84-year-old widow hobbling around on a bum hip, her children, who live hours away, decide it’s time for their mother to have some live-in help. Enter floundering, 21-year-old, Tanner Quimby, whose promising college sports scholarship--and dreams of playing soccer professionally--are sidelined by a very badly broken leg. The arrangement would appear a win-win for the two injured women. However, after some initial, mutual resistance--and Tanner attuned to some dubious red flags in Louise’s behavior--the duo set off on an impulsive road trip. When Louise’s daughter files a missing persons’ report, the family discovers that Louise has actually been living under an alias for years—on an FBI watchlist involving a notorious jewel heist from Boston in the 1970s. Could this be true? And does this have anything to do with Louise and Tanner suddenly going on the lam?

 

Well-structured elements of mystery and suspense infuse this enjoyable friendship story about lives well-lived—however burdened by challenges and questionable choices. A lively plot, off-beat characters and surprising twists bring levity to darker themes that probe issues of feminism and aging. Oakley’s storytelling (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too) is first rate. Readers will eagerly hop aboard this wildly fun, greatly entertaining ride.

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley

Berkley (Penguin), $27.00 hardcover, 9780593200803, 352 pages

Publishing Date: March 28, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (March 24, 2023), link HERE

Recipe for a Perfect Wife

A powerful, thought-provoking story about the choices that ultimately come to define and liberate two women who lived 60 years apart.

Characters often face difficult choices--and learn how to live with the consequences--in the novels of Karma Brown (TheChoices We Make). In Recipe for a Perfect Wife, she continues this theme, chronicling the lives of two women who lived nearly 60 years apart.

In 2018, 29-year-old Alice Hale and her husband, Nate, move from a "shoebox-size" apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan to a sprawling colonial house in Greenville, a suburban town "less than an hour's train ride from the city and yet an entirely different world." Alice has apprehensions about the retro fixer-upper, but nevertheless makes the adjustment.

While Nate commutes to his city job, Alice, having left her career and friends behind to write a novel, feels a deep loneliness. When she finds a vintage cookbook in the basement and begins whipping up some of the recipes, her anxiety and depression start to lift. She becomes intrigued and wants to find out all she can about Nellie Murdoch, the previous owner of the cookbook and the house.

As Alice learns more about Nellie's life, she faces unexpected crises that force her to rethink choices she's made, secrets she's kept and actions she may need to take in the future. Patriarchal dilemmas abound for both women. Yet, through the wisdom evoked by revelations in Nellie's life story, Alice is suddenly inspired and empowered better to deal with her own challenges.

Strong, well-drawn women anchor Brown's deeply thought-provoking, feminist novel. The spellbinding dual stories complement each other, raising themes of self-discovery, self-preservation and liberation for two women living eras apart.

Recipe for a Perfect Wife (A Novel) by Karma Brown

Dutton, $26.00 Hardcover, 9781524744939, 336 pages

Publication Date: December 31, 2019

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (January 10, 2020), link HERE

To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (December 6, 2019), link HERE