REVIEW: Beach House Reunion by Mary Alice Monroe

Beach House Reunion (Beach House #5) by Mary Alice Monroe is a wonderful story of family. It is about strength and trust and finding love again. It is about healing and breaking old habits. It has amazing characters and wonderful scenery. This story feels like coming home, with 3 generations of family trying to find their way and learning that they can truly be a family.

Cara Rutledge has come home to the Isle of Palms and Primrose Cottage to restart her life. She lost her husband Brett 3 years ago and knows that it is time for her to start living again. At 53, she has adopted Hope, who is only a year old. But being back on the Isle of Palms has flooded Cara with memories, especially of her mother, Lovie. To help her with Hope, Cara hires Linnea, her brother Palmer’s daughter, to live with her for the summer.

Linnea has recently graduated from college and is struggling to figure out her next steps and relishes the idea of living with her aunt at the beach until she knows what she wants to do. She feels like she is adrift, not sure which direction her life will take her, not sure if she has the strength to make decisions on her own.

As they start to make friends, find love and companionship, and break the cycle of the past, they learn that they have more strength and courage within themselves then they once thought.

I loved this story. I was an amazing story of remarkable women finding themselves and learning to truly live their lives to the fullest.

Book Info:

Publication: May 22nd 2018 | Gallery Books | Beach House #5

Whisking you back to the shores of her bestselling Beach House series, Mary Alice Monroe weaves together a tale of the struggles and triumphs of the historic Rutledge family of Charleston, South Carolina. Beautifully wrought and rich with keen insight, this is an illuminating tale of new beginnings, resilience, and one family’s enduring love.

Cara Rutledge returns to her Southern home on the idyllic Isle of Palms. Everything is comfortingly the same, yet each detail is rife with painful memories. Only through reconnecting with family, friends, and the rhythms of the lowcountry can Cara release the hold of the past and open herself to the possibility of a new love, career, and hope for the future.

Meanwhile, her niece Linnea, a recent college graduate who doesn’t know where her life will take her, leaves her historic home in Charleston, with all its entitlement and expectations, and heads to her aunt’s beach house. On the island, she is part of the freer, natural ocean lifestyle she loves, rejoining the turtle team, learning to surf, and falling in love. Remembering the lessons of her beloved grandmother, Lovie, the original “turtle lady,” Linnea rediscovers a meaningful purpose to her life and finds the courage she needs to break from tradition.

In this heartwarming novel, three generations of the Rutledge family gather together to find the strength, love, and commitment to break destructive family patterns and to forge new bonds that will endure long beyond one summer reunion.