Sensible thirty-six-year-old Sophie Anderson has always known what to do. She knows her role in life: supportive wife of a successful architect and calm, capable mother of two. But on a warm summer night, as the house grows quiet around her and her children fall asleep, she wonders what's missing from her life. When her husband echoes that lonely question, announcing that he’s leaving her for another woman, Sophie realizes she has no idea what's next. Impulsively renting a guest cottage on Nantucket from her friend Susie Swenson, Sophie rounds up her kids, Jonah and Lacey, and leaves Boston for a quiet family vacation, minus one.
Also minus one is Trevor Black, a software entrepreneur who has recently lost his wife. Trevor is the last person to imagine himself, age thirty and on his own, raising a little boy like Leo—smart and sweet, but grappling constantly with his mother's death, growing more and more closed off. Hoping a quiet summer on the Nantucket coast will help him reconnect with Leo, Trevor rents a guest house on the beautiful island from his friend Ivan Swenson.
Best-laid plans run awry when Sophie and Trevor realize they’ve mistakenly rented the same house. Still, determined to make this a summer their kids will always remember, the two agree to share the Swensons' Nantucket house. But as the summer unfolds and the families grow close, Sophie and Trevor must ask themselves if the guest cottage is all they want to share.
Inspiring and true to life, The Guest Cottage is Nancy Thayer at her finest, inscribing in graceful, knowing prose matters of the heart and the meaning of family.
And thus, our story begins! Every other chapter is told in 1st person ~ with the bulk of the story revolving around their instant attraction and a will-they-or–won’t-they sexual relationship. Various friends and relatives make their appearances to complicate things between Sophie and Trevor: sub-stories about an abandoned music career and a heroin addicted dead wife come up now and again, and the obligatory miscommunications and misunderstandings occur. But this was a delightful novel about two single parents who accidentally rent the same summer house and must soon decide where their hearts truly lie.
For lovers of light romance, the familiar elements are all there: instalove, imagined table sex, misunderstandings, weddings, and babies. And of course, we get our “happily ever-after” when everything turns out fine at the end and life is good for Sophie and Trevor.
The Guest Cottage by Nancy Thayer is a tepid romance novel at its best and it’s a shame. I found it was just too easy to predict the story line and could tell the inevitable outcome long before the final chapter.
Those who love this author or even Nantucket might find something to interest them in the pages of The Guest Cottage; for the rest, it’s likely a cottage they won’t want to visit.
Take Care
0 comments:
Post a Comment