Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title:  Summer State of Mind

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell, Stephanie Einstein, Matt Pittenger

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 21 minutes

Source: Review copy from Simon & Schuster Audio. Thank-you!

On this last official weekend of summer, did you have any last-minute adventures or summer reads?

Baseball coach Mason and his star student Drew, find a newborn in a dumpster behind the school.  They rush it to the hospital and meet nurse Daisy who has just moved to the area.  As Daisy falls in love with the newborn, will she be able to foster and keep the child?  Mason and Daisy feel a spark – will they start a romance?  Who abandoned the child?

My thoughts on this book:

·       I loved the community and characters in this book.

·       Daisy and Mason both had past issues they had to work through to move forward to a happy life. 

·       This was a great summer beach read.  I found it to be highly entertaining.

·       One of my favorite characters was Aunty Tilly.  She has multiple personalities but takes a step forward in her life by starring in Hello Dolly.  Will she be able to face her past and move into the future?

·       I just love stories where babies are found – I don’t know why.  I guess it’s a happy story where a baby I rescued by someone who loves it.  Rilla of Ingleside also is a favorite book where a baby is found.

·       This story was great on audiobook.  I loved the narrators. The story is told through three points of view -  Daisy, Tilly, and Mason.

·       The setting was in a fictional seaside town in North Carolina.

·       I would classify this novel as a family drama and contemporary romance story.

·       This story focused on what does it mean to be a family?  Can you forgive a past wrong?

·       It did like Daisy was skirting some professional ethics at work with Baby Mason.

·       I enjoyed the mystery of figuring out who abandoned the baby as well as Daisy and Tilly’s pasts.

Overall, Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey was an entertaining contemporary romance and family drama that I greatly enjoyed.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title:  Beach House Rules

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Suehyla El-Attar Young

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 4 minutes

Source: Thank-you to @simonaudio for the review copy.

Do you like to visit the beach?  I love the beach, but I live on Lake Michigan so the beach to me is the Great Lakes rather than the ocean.  I am trying to finish up my summer beach reads this week.

Charlotte’s husband has been arrested for a white-collar crime.  She and her daughter Iris are locked out of their home during the investigation.  A kind woman from church, Alice, invites them to stay with her.  She lives in a B&B on the beach and has a community of mothers living with her.  Will Charlotte and Iris be able to move on?  What links all the mothers living in the “momune” together?  Is Charlotte’s husband guilty?

My thoughts on this book:

·       I liked the mystery woven throughout the story.  It was tied up perfectly at the end.

·       The story is told through the viewpoints of Charlotte, Iris, and Alice, which was interesting.

·       I liked the two different generational viewpoints of a mother and a teenage daughter.

·       @JuniperShoresSocialite has a snarky Instagram account which details all of the goings on of both the moms and the teenagers in the Juniper Shores community.  Who is running the account?

·       I enjoyed all the characters.

·       Alice is a widow with three husband who died in accidents.  Is she a black widow or can she move on with handsome Elliot?

·       The narration of this audiobook was great with three narrators.  It was enjoyable to listen to.

·       I also liked the second chances in this book for life and love.

·       This book was light and entertaining.

·       It was not spicy.

·       I loved the beautiful setting on the coast of North Carolina.

·       I loved the “momune” and women helping each other and their kids working through difficult times.  I always enjoy stories of found families.

Overall, Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey was a great story of second chances and found family.  It was a great summer beach read but is also a great read for any time of the year.

A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title: A Happier Life

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell, Devon Sorvari, Fred Sanders

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 16 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you!

What could you do to have a happier life?  I loved a previous job, but the work hours prevented me from spending time with my family.  To have a happier life, I made a job change.

Keaton Smith loses her job due to personnel complications at work.  Work tip – don’t date your co-workers!  Her mother asks her to travel to Beaufort, North Carolina to clean out her grandmother’s house.  Her grandparents (Rebecca and Townsend) died in a car crash in 1976 and her mom and uncle shut up their house and never came back.  Did they really die in a car crash (their bodies were never found)? Will Keaton discover her place in life?

·       This was the July pick for the Brenda Novak Book Club.  I read it in August.  I enjoyed listening to Brenda Novak’s conversation with author Kristy Woodson Harvey about the book.

·       This novel was a good look into life and how decisions can impact your life and generations that follow you.

 

·       I had a hard time at first with the timeline and the ages of everyone.  The grandparents are my great-grandparents’ age and the main character is thirteen years younger than me.  It was explained later that they were older mothers.

·       It is mostly told from Keaton and Rebecca’s points of view, but some chapters are narrated by Townsend, especially from his journal.

·       The narrators were great, and this was a fun audiobook to listen to.

·       I love the story of a granddaughter discovering the story of her grandmother.

·       I enjoyed Rebecca “Becks” St. James’s chapters about being the perfect hostess, falling in love with Townsend, her troubled relationship with her mother, and becoming a mother.  I thought it was fun for their grandkids to find their journals and discover who they were.

·       The characters and community in Beaufort were excellent.

·       I loved when Keaton’s Mom told her that life is not like a Hallmark movie, and she shouldn’t leave the big city for a man.  I laughed out loud.

·       There was a great mystery in the story of what happened to the grandparents, although I did figure it out early on.

·       What makes a happier life?  Becks thinks she couldn’t have had a happier life and loves everything about her life.  Keaton is trying to figure out how to have a happier life.

·       I LOVED the 1970s-time capsule vintage house.

·       I want to host a Beck St. James perfect party.

·       It was interesting that the story was inspired by the mysterious disappearance of the author’s great aunt and uncle and her experience opening a house that had been closed for fifty years.

 

Overall, A Happier Life was a feel-good story with a great ending.  It was a perfect beach read.

The Summer of Songbirds by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title: The Summer of Songbirds

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Jennifer Jill Araya, Reena Dutt, and Jackie Sanders

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 58 minutes 

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

Did you go to summer camp growing up?  I always wanted to, but it was too expensive.  I did go to a couple of church campouts, and they were a lot of fun.

Three women met as young girls at Camp Holly Springs and became lifetime friends.  Now as adults they are shocked to learn that the camp is going to close.  June Moore has run the camp for many years and is sad about its closing, but is happy that her niece Daphne and friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart are back with ideas on how to keep it open.  They are all going through interesting periods of their lives.  Mary Stuart has just gotten married.  Lanier is engaged but can’t help thinking of the one who got away.  Daphne is also thinking about the one who got away, Lanier’s brother.  Lanier doesn’t want Huff and Daphne to get back together, but will their hearts let them give up love a second time?

This story was told from three points of view:  Lanier, Daphne, and June.  I thought it was interesting that June was one of the narrators rather than the third person in the friend trio, Mary Stuart.  I also love how they always call her Mary Stuart with her first and last name.  The audiobook had three different narrators which provided each book narrator with their own unique voice, which I enjoyed.

I thought the story was entertaining and light.  I loved that it explored friendship and growing up.  I loved how the women had a great time as children at the camp and wonderful memories to fall back on.  I liked that they were there to support each other during hard times and that they could still learn as adults that they can make changes and move on from mistakes.  I loved the theme of found family.  The epilogue tied up everything perfectly. It was a perfect summer read.

The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Do you have a special wedding veil in your family?  My Mom bought me mine and I have it sealed up for my daughter to use if she would like to in the future.

I’ve read and enjoyed Kristy Woodson Harvey’s romance novels and I was thrilled to be able to read her first historical fiction / contemporary novel.  The Wedding Veil is the intermingled stories of four different women through time.  In 1879, Edith Dresser dreams of the day she will wear her family’s historic wedding veil.  She grows up and marries George Vanderbilt in a beautiful wedding.  George has built the Biltmore estate in Ashville North Carolina.  After his untimely death, Edith tries to hold everything together for her daughter Cornelia to inherit.  Cornelia has the dream wedding of her own, but she wonders, is their more out there in life for her?

In present day, Julia Baxter is ready to be married using her family’s historic wedding veil.  After receiving a video, the day of her wedding showing her fiancé cheating on her, she knows she needs to change the direction of her life.  Luckily her Grandma Babs is there to support her.  After becoming a widow late in life, Babs wonders, can she move forward and have the life she wants while she still can?

I loved this novel.  The four women and two dueling timelines was intriguing and kept me vested in the story.  I enjoyed both timelines equally.  In contemporary times, I wanted Julia and Babs to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives and to solve the mystery of their family veil.  In the past timeline, I learned about Biltmore and the Vanderbilt women.  I had not read about them before, and I found their story to be fascinating.  I have always wanted to visit the Biltmore estate and Ashville ever since I watched Last of the Mohicans (filmed on location there) as a teenager.  This novel made me want to visit even more!  I also just love to read about weddings, historic clothing, beautiful estates, and this book had it all.  It also had very interesting characters and conflict as well.  I love that they all had to find their inner strength and forge their own paths.  It was an uplifting novel.

I enjoyed the author’s note at the end and hope that the author writes more historical fiction novels.   I think if you enjoyed The Gown by Jennifer Robson or The Last Dance of the Debutante by Julia Kelly, or any of Kristy Woodson Harvey’s previous novels, you will love this book.

Book Source:  A Review Copy from Gallery Books and Spark Point Studio.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Christmas in Peachtree Bluff by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Title:  Christmas in Peachtree Bluff 

Author: Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Shannon McManus, Janet Metzger, Rebekka Ross, Candace Thaxton, and Erin Ruth Walker

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 24 minutes 

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank-you!

Do you live close to your family or travel for the holidays?

Christmas in Peachtree Bluff is the story of the Murphy family.  Mother Ainsley is happy to have her three adult daughters (Caroline, Sloane, and Emerson) and her grandchildren in Peachtree Bluff to celebrate Thanksgiving.  Caroline and her husband James are going through a divorce and their teenage daughter, Vivi, is acting out.  Ansley and her husband Jack decide to take granddaughter Vivi with them on their vacation of their dreams to cruse around Australia.   As the storm of the century barrels down on Peachtree Bluff, will they be able to get out in time?  Will they all be together again for Christmas?

I am new to the world of Peachtree Bluff.  This book is the fourth in the series, but I felt like it gave enough background that I was able to read it as a stand-alone book.   I loved how this book was narrated by all of the women in the family; Ainsley, Caroline, Sloane, Emerson, and Vivi.  There were different audiobook narrators for each of these characters and I thought it gave the book great personality.

I enjoyed all of the characters and their family story.  There was definitely adventure, heartache, and love in this story.  I loved the small-town southern setting.  It was a great tale of forgiveness and of making new starts in life.  I will admit I had a hard time with the character of Vivi at first, but she grew on me after a while.  My parents also divorced when I was in my teen years.  Vivi seemed more than a tad irresponsible and the excuse of her parents getting divorced was a bit grating.  Especially as she seemed to be rewarded and never punished for her behavior.  Luckily some long forgotten treasure and new love stories endeared Vivi to me by the end.

Overall, Christmas in Peachtree Bluff is a cozy Christmas tale with love, family drama and a hurricane.  I need to read more from Kristy Woodson Harvey!