arc · contemporary · romance

Cottage by the Sea by Debbie Macomber

♥♥ 4 Healing Stars ♥♥

After unspeakable tragedy, Annie is left reeling and trying to find a way through her grief. She’s been barely making it through everyday life for over a year when she decides to get out her haze and find her “happy place”. Remembering her childhood vacations to a cottage in a sleepy beach town, she decides to see if she can find meaning in her life again there. Annie insinuates into her new town and slowly ingrains herself into the lives and hearts of those around her.

While this story definitely has romance going on, it’s all very PG. I haven’t read that much by Ms. Macomber, so I’m not sure if this is part of her writing style or not, but I was really hoping for at least a couple hot sex scenes. I think Keaton had the potential to be a really hot brooding alpha male type guy, but he was much more reserved and gentle than expected. That being said, he still gave me those gooey feelings and was super sexy when he got all protective of Annie. I felt that while the story focused more on Annie’s journey to healing more than the romantic development between Annie and Keaton, Annie didn’t seem to address her past basically at all. The tragedy is what brought her to the town and allowed her to connect with so many others, but it’s not until almost the end of the book that she talks about her past with someone, and it’s not even with Keaton! And when Keaton finds out, he’s so blasé about it and they don’t even talk about what happened. For this to be the whole premise of the book, I felt like it was basically just a sidetone by the end of the book.

Overall, I thought this was a fairly easy and light read (with the exception of the first couple chapters). It’s not often that I find myself interested in the lives of the secondary characters, but I found myself almost caring more about the others’ development than the main characters’!

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