Review: Beach House for Rent

Title: Beach House for Rent
Author: Mary Alice Monroe
Series: Stand Alone
Publication Date: June 20, 2017
Publisher: Gallery Books
Book Type: Kindle
Page Count: 384
Rating: 5/5 starfish
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Synopsis:

When Cara Rutledge rents out her quaint beach house on Isle of Palms to Heather Wyatt for the entire summer, it’s a win-win by any standard: Cara’s generating income necessary to keep husband Brett’s ecotourism boat business afloat, and anxiety-prone Heather, an young artist who’s been given a commission to paint birds on postage stamps, has a quiet space in which to work and tend to her pet canaries uninterrupted.

It isn’t long, however, before both women’s idyllic summers are altered irrevocably: the alluring shorebirds—and the man who rescues them—begin to draw Heather out of the shell she’s cultivated toward a world of adventure, and maybe even love; at the same time, Cara’s life reels with sudden tragedy, and she wishes only to return to the beach house that had once been her port amidst life’s storms. When Heather refuses to budge from her newfound sanctuary, so begins the unlikeliest of rooming situations. While they start out as strangers, as everything around the women falls apart they learn that the only thing they can really rely on is each other.

And, like the migrating shorebirds that come to the island for the summer, these two women of different generations must rediscover their unique strengths so by summer’s end they, too, can take flight in ways they never imagined possible.

My Review:

I received an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Cara Rutledge is a 50 year old woman who is happily married to the love of her life, but she feels that something is missing.  Once an advertising agent known for her take no prisoners attitude, she has settled way down in a small beach town in the Carolinas.  When one event upturns her entire world she starts to question who she is and what her purpose in life is.  Going home to her mother’s beach house seems to be the only answer but it has a tenant for the rest of the summer.

Heather Wyatt is in her early twenties but not without issues of her own.  After a horrible car accident took the life of her mother, but spared her 8 years earlier, she is still trying to get over the grief.  Having social anxiety doesn’t help either.  An up and coming artist who just landed a commission from the USPS to design a shore birds stamp, Heather’s father has rented Primrose, a beach house on the Isle of Palms, for her to do her painting.  What Heather doesn’t realize is that the beach house will serve as more than a temporary home.  It will be her saving grace.

I loved all of the characters in this story.  It was funny and at times sad read but definitely kept me turning the pages.  I wished so many times that I was staring out at the ocean while reading this.  It’s the kind of book that just brings you back down to earth and makes you stop and appreciate the little things.