A Week at the Shore by Barbara Delinsky ~ My Thoughts #QWeekAtTheShore

A Week at the Shore by Barbara Delinsky 
Print and e-book, 416 pages
Published May 19th 2020 by St. Martin's Press

In her new bestseller, New York Times bestselling 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. 

My thoughts about A Week at the Shore ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)

First line—"I remember the smell of sea salt on my skin and the rolling tumble of the surf. I remember the brilliance of the sun that popped the colors of our towels, boogie boards, and bikinis."

This author writes such descriptive prose that I really felt like I spent a week at the shore. Such beautiful words. But not all is as serene with the people in the story. There is a lot of baggage and hard feelings from the past that are brought to the surface when Mallory goes home for the first time in twenty years.

I love these kinds of stories, where families are thrown back together as they try to 'work it out'. Sometimes is works, and sometimes it doesn't. But watching the relationships unravel and possibly come together again makes for a very interesting story. Barbara Delinsky has mastered working out the complicated relationships while still writing interesting characters and settings.

I loved A Week at the Shore and truly did enjoy the getaway that I felt I was on while visiting this beach town. This would be a perfect summer read for everyone.

I received and ARC of A Week at the Shore from NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.

About the author

Barbara Delinsky, author of Before and Again (2018), Blueprints (2015), Sweet Salt Air (2013), Escape (2011), and Not My Daughter (2010), has written more than twenty-two bestselling novels with over thirty-five million copies in print. She has been published in thirty languages worldwide.

Barbara's fiction centers upon everyday families facing not-so-everyday challenges. She is particularly drawn to exploring themes of motherhood, marriage, sibling rivalry, and friendship in her novels. Publishers often reissue beloved titles; The Passions of Chealsea Kane, Facets, and Committments were trade paperback releases in 2017.

A lifelong New Englander, Barbara earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. As a breast cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease when she was only eight, Barbara compiled the non-fiction book Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors, a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes. She donates her proceeds from the sale of this book to her charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Barbara enjoys knitting, photography, and cats. She also loves to interact with her readers through her website, on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter. 

Connect with Barbara

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

*********************

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Release Day! Before and Again by Barbara Delinsky

Happy Release Day!

Before and Again

Before and Again by Barbara Delinsky
Print and e-book, 416 pages
Published June 26th 2018 by St. Martin's Press

Mackenzie Cooper took her eyes off the road for just a moment but the resulting collision was enough to rob her not only of her beloved daughter but ultimately of her marriage, family, and friends—and thanks to the nonstop media coverage, even her privacy. Now she lives in Vermont under the name Maggie Reid, in a small house with her cats and dog. She’s thankful for the new friends she’s made—though she can’t risk telling them too much. And she takes satisfaction in working as a makeup artist at the luxurious local spa, helping clients hide the visible outward signs of their weariness, illnesses, and injuries. Covering up scars is a skill she has mastered.

Her only goal is to stay under the radar and make it through her remaining probation. But she isn’t the only one in this peaceful town with secrets. When a friend’s teenage son is thrust into the national spotlight, accused of hacking a powerful man’s Twitter account, Maggie is torn between pulling away and protecting herself—or stepping into the glare to be at their side. As the stunning truth behind their case is slowly revealed, Maggie’s own carefully constructed story begins to unravel as well. She knows all too well that what we need from each other in this difficult world is comfort. But to provide it, sometimes we need to travel far outside our comfort zones.

Before and Again is a story of the relationships we find ourselves in—mothers and daughters, spouses and siblings, true companions and fair-weather friends—and what kind of sacrifices we are or aren’t willing to make to sustain them through good times and bad.

     

Congratulations Barbara

 on the release today of

Before and Again!

I am currently reading Before and Again and am loving it, as I have loved all of Barbara's stories. She definitely has another hit on her hands. 

************************

About the author

I was born and raised in suburban Boston. My mother’s death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom dancing lessons. I went to summer camp through my fifteenth year (in Maine, which explains the setting of so many of my stories), then spent my sixteenth summer learning to type and to drive (two skills that have served me better than all of my other high school courses combined). I earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. The motivation behind the M.A. was sheer greed. My husband was just starting law school. We needed the money.

Following graduate school, I worked as a researcher with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and as a photographer and reporter for the Belmont Herald. I did the newspaper work after my first son was born. Since I was heavily into taking pictures of him, I worked for the paper to support that habit. Initially, I wrote only in a secondary capacity, to provide copy for the pictures I took. In time, I realized that I was better at writing than photography. I used both skills doing volunteer work for hospital groups, and have served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and on the MGH’s Women’s Cancer Advisory Board.

I became an actual writer by fluke. My twins were four when, by chance, I happened on a newspaper article profiling three female writers. Intrigued, I spent three months researching, plotting, and writing my own book - and it sold.

My niche? I write about the emotional crises that we face in our lives. Readers identify with my characters. They know them. They are them. I'm an everyday woman writing about everyday people facing not-so-everyday challenges.

My novels are character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship, and I’ve been blessed in having readers who buy them eagerly enough to put them on the major bestseller lists. One of my latest, Sweet Salt Air, came out in 2013.  Blueprints, my second novel with St. Martin’s Press, became my 22nd New York Times bestselling novel soon after its release in June 2015.  Making Up, my work in progress, will be published in 2018.

2018? Yikes. I didn’t think I’d live that long. I thought I’d die of breast cancer back in the 1900's, like my mom. But I didn’t. I was diagnosed nearly twenty years ago, had surgery and treatment, and here I am, stronger than ever and loving having authored yet another book, this one the non-fiction Uplift: Secrets From the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. First published in 2001, Uplift is a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes that I compiled with the help of 350 breast cancer survivors, their families and friends. These survivors just ... blew me away! They gave me the book that I wish I’d had way back when I was diagnosed. There is no medical information here, nothing frightening, simply practical advice from friends who’ve had breast cancer. The 10th Anniversary Volume of Uplift is now in print. And the money I’ve made on the book? Every cent has gone to my charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. ~ Goodreads

Connect with Barbara

Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Twitter

*****************************

Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!