A Week at the Shore by Barbara Delinsky – Book Review

It has been several years since I’ve read a book by Ms. Delinsky. I thank St. Martin’s Press for sending me a copy of her lastest book, A Week at the Shore at no charge for my honest review.

About A Week at the Shore:

In A Week at the Shore, New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky explores how lives and relationships are forever changed when three sisters reunite at their family Rhode Island beach house.

One phone call is all it takes to lure real estate photographer Mallory Aldiss back to her family Rhode Island beach home. It’s been twenty years since she’s been gone―running from the scandal that destroyed her parents’ marriage, drove her and her two sisters apart, and crushed her relationship with her first love. But going home is fraught with emotional baggage―memories, mysteries and secrets abound.

Mal’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Joy, has never been to the place where Mal’s life was shaped and is desperate to go. Fatherless, she craves family and especially wants to spend time with the grandfather she barely knows.

In just seven watershed days on the Rhode Island coast three women will test the bonds of sisterhood, friendship and family, and discover the role that love and memory plays in defining their lives.

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About the Author:

Barbara Delinsky is the author of such New York Times bestselling books as Before and Again and Sweet Salt Air. She has been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide. A lifelong New Englander, Delinsky earned a B.A. in psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in sociology at Boston College. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, more books than she’ll ever be able to read, two tennis racquets, and enough electronic devices to keep in close touch with her children and their families.

My Opinion:

A Week at the Shore chronicles the tale of three sisters who grew up at the beach in Rhode Island. They all loved living in their resort town a family scandal drove two of them far away. It’s only when a neighbor and former lover Jack calls Mallory that she decides it might be time to go back home. Her father is suffering from early dementia and Mallory’s daughter has never met her grandfather.

Many, many years ago Mallory’s father went out in a boat with Jack’s mother and only one of them came back. The investigation that followed was never able to answer whether Jack’s mother jumped, was pushed or simply fell out of the boat. Or even why they went out in the first place. Jack is desperate to know what happened and with the dementia taking hold he fears he will never find out what happened to his mother.

Mallory decides to spend a week at the shore to give her daughter the family she never had. So, so much happens during that week it seems like much longer. Questions are asked, some are answered others are left hanging. In the tradition of these types of books romance blossoms, is lost and is presumed to be settled. I don’t think I’m giving anything away with that statement. Other plot points I’ll leave in the book as there are a few twists here and there but most you see coming. It’s a light, diversionary read perfect for this time of year and these times. No real thinking is required and the story floats away on the waves of the ocean as soon as you are done.

Rating:

3.5