Sandy M’s review of Folly Cove by Holly Robinson
Women’s Fiction published by Berkley 4 Oct 16
I love the way Holly Robinson writes. She draws the reader in word by word, page by page, conflict by conflict with humor and everyday grit we all go through. Even the romantic elements are more real than the fantasy in most romance novels. We meet the Bradford sisters at Folly Cove, the family home and business.While it seems their individual worlds are falling apart, they have no way of knowing maybe this time the struggles are all for the best for a brighter future.
Youngest sister Anne is the first to come home, needing help and her family. Knowing her mother, Sarah will make this path difficult, but Anne really has nowhere else to go, since her lover left her and their daughter behind as he hightailed it away from responsibility. Moving into a guest cottage close to her aunt, all because her mother’s edict a child’s noisiness will disrupt their guests’ stay at the inn, Anne begins working in the inn’s kitchen, keeps trying to avoid her oldest sister, and still isn’t sure what she’s going to do next.
Elly is the middle Bradford sister, and she also fled Folly Cove as quickly as Anne years before. Her career has taken a couple of unexpected left turns, and while she’s mostly happy being a set designer in California, it’s her older sister who entices her to come home to figure out if she needs to or should make some changes. Elly is the beauty of the family, the one expected to go far, and her mother thinks this should still happen, despite Elly’s experience to date. She’s also the sister who keeps the peace with smiles and laughter.
It’s the oldest, Laura, who stayed close to home. She married young, has a child and a loving husband, but things are tight financially seemingly all the time. Cutting corners and doing without works most of the time, but there are those moments when asking mother for funds is necessary. Laura isn’t happy to know Anne has come home. She’s still angry that her sister tried to seduce her husband and will never believe Anne’s declarations of innocence in that matter.
As each sister has to become acclimated to a new level of living, stunning secrets will be revealed from every quarter, bringing the sisters closer together as they had been in their younger years. The most stunning is from their mother, a woman they thought they knew so well. All four women also find love at a time in life when it’s needed as well as wanted, albeit a bit begrudgingly in one or two instances. Life begins to turn around for them all as they repair their relationships with each new revelation in their lives. I always like a story that turns a character around for me. In the beginning, I didn’t care for either Sarah or Laura, both preferring to keep family at bay in one form or another. But as events unfold and you learn their stories too, you’re just as caught up in their lives as the others. That’s part of the beauty of Ms. Robinson’s storytelling.
This is a wonderfully complicated family story that will keep you reading long past the time to put the book down. There are fun times and triumphs along the way to make lessons learned more appreciated. Don’t miss reading this one. You’ll be an instant fan of Holly Robinson with the very first page.
Grade: B+
Summary:
The ties of family bind us forever—no matter how far we may go to escape them…
The Bradford sisters are famous in Rockport, Massachusetts: for their beauty, their singing voices, their legendary ancestors, and their elegant mother, Sarah, who has run the historic Folly Cove Inn alone ever since her husband disappeared.
The two youngest sisters, Anne and Elly, fled Folly Cove as soon as they could to pursue their dreams and escape the Bradford name, while Laura stayed and created a seemingly picture perfect life. After a series of bad decisions, Anne has no choice but to come home and face her critical mother and oldest sister, reluctantly followed by Elly, another Bradford woman who’s hiding something.
As the three sisters plan a grand celebration for their mother’s birthday, they struggle to maintain the illusions about their lives that they’ve so carefully crafted. But when painful old wounds reopen and startling family secrets are revealed, they soon discover that even the seemingly unbreakable bonds of sisterhood can be tested…
No excerpt available.
