The Beach House on Amelia Island
by Hope Holloway
Seven Sisters - Book 1
Publisher: Hope Holloway
Release Date: March 31, 2023
Reviewed by PJ
The start of a heartwarming saga of sisterhood, secrets, and second chances...
The very moment that Raina Wingate learns her husband of sixteen years wants to separate, she gets a call that her father has suffered a stroke. Racing to her family’s home on Amelia Island, Florida, Raina hopes the time apart will heal her cracked marriage and that she can step into her father’s real estate business and keep it running.
Her sister, Tori, a divorcee who owns a catering business in Boston, also flies in to join the others at the hospital. But an unexpected run-in with their father’s rather attractive neurologist adds a new dimension to the days and weeks ahead.
They gather around their father, but it doesn’t take long to see that it is Susannah, mother to three and stepmother to four of the sisters, who needs them the most. A woman who maintains appearances at all times, sixty-one year old Susannah nearly breaks at the possibility of losing her husband. She has never needed her daughters more.
When the clouds roll over the beach house on Amelia Island, the Wingate women learn over and over again that the bond between the seven sisters is as strong as steel, as gentle as an ocean breeze, and as lasting as their family legacy.
PJ's Thoughts:
One book into this seven-book series and I am already fully and wholeheartedly invested in these complex characters and their complicated lives. That's the magic of Hope Holloway and her ability to create intriguing people (because that's how I think of them, as people, not characters on a page) with whom I want to be friends. People I care about. People I cheer for, cry with, and laugh with.
While the primary focus of this first book is on Susannah, Raina, and Tori, all of the sisters are introduced and each will get their turn in the spotlight in future books. I enjoy how Holloway spotlights two or three different characters in each book while also weaving the others' storylines into those stories too. The sisters' father is also an integral part of this first book, both with his stroke bringing everyone home but also because of a mystery tied to him. I'm guessing that mystery will unfold throughout the series but I'm already searching for clues because, dang, this author knows exactly how to pique my curiosity.
As she has done with her previous series set in the Florida Keys and on Sanibel Island, this setting of Amelia Island is so vibrantly - and accurately - depicted it is almost a character in itself rather than just a backdrop for the characters' journeys. She's brought the beaches, quirky shops, rich culture, and history of the island to life. It made me want to hop in my car and take a trip up the road for an overdue visit.
If you enjoy immersive, heart-tugging family sagas with humor, relatable challenges, character growth, romance, and mystery, check out the first book in Hope Holloway's Seven Sisters series: The Beach House on Amelia Island. And if you're eager (like me) to know what happens next, you only have to wait until June for book two, The Cafe on Amelia Island and August for book three, The Bookstore on Amelia Island.
