Family

Having run away to marry against her family’s wishes, Cassie has been estranged from her parents and sisters for more than a decade. Now with her parents deceased, she returns to her home state with her young daughter in tow, a leaving her failed marriage and her abusive behind. Fearful of confronting her sisters, yet longing to be reconciled with them, this tale is Cassie’s story. It is one of loving forgiveness and determination to forge ahead. Well told in Macomber’s signature style, readers can look forward to a story whose characters will likely have problems, but with perseverance, those problems can be overcome. A happy ending is likely not guaranteed for everyone. ( )

3.5 stars ( )

rabck from love2cook; new series. Growing up, Cassie, Karen and Nicole were very close sisters, until Cassie runs away with her boyfriend. Most of the book revolves around Cassie and how she's putting her life back together, with ticklers about Karen and Nichole, so you know they will be in subsequent books. ( )

Seriously. I cannot with books that ask you to check your brain at the door when you start to read them. It is maddening to me when that happens in books because the entire time you are just reading and seething.

Told in three points of view, we follow three sisters. The middle sister, Cassie, has been estranged from her family since she ran off and married her high school boyfriend. Now that both of her parents are deceased, we have Cassie trying to reconnect with her older sister Karen and younger sister Nichole. Since Karen and Nichole have stayed in touch and live near one another, we have them pressing back against Cassie since they still see her as the selfish sister who broke their parents hearts.

I really wanted to like Cassie. She had been through some horrible things. That all gets thrown out the window though when you realize that she never told her mother and sisters what was going on with her and her daughter and why she couldn't come home for her father's funeral. Heck she doesn't even explain again to her sisters after her mother passes either. Cassie is in pretty dire straights and is doing what she can to get her and her daughter in a habitat for humanity home. It makes no sense at all why Cassie waits until almost the end of the book to let her sisters know what is going on with her when they could have helped, or at least been less harsh towards her.

Karen was awful. She had a lot of resentment towards Cassie and acted like she wanted to come and steal the clothes off of her back. It would have made sense if we got any clues that Cassie was about herself as a child (she wasn't) and she was asking for money all of the time. Her not telling her own children about a second sister didn't make a lot of sense. Karen's husband felt off the whole book, and then you read what was going on with him and that helped flesh things out a bit with him. But seriously, Macomber lets this whole incident with the two of these characters just hang and get resolved in two sentences at the end of the book.

Nichole was indifferent and blind and I hated any parts of the book that dealt with her point of view. In the end, Nichole had a rude awakening and Macomber doesn't really let you know what is going to happen. I honestly didn't care so it's not that big of a deal.

The other characters in the book really don't work. Cassie's love interest was an alpha male that made me want to kick him in the shin repeatedly. Probably the only part of the book that I really did enjoy, was Cassie realizing that things were going too fast and pumped her breaks on the whole relationship. I loathe romance books that have the hero/heroine somehow engaged/married within a week or month of knowing each other.

The writing really wasn't that great when we were not focused on Cassie's point of view. Honestly the book would have been stronger without the other two sister's included in this as they were. The flow was messed up too from us jumping from Cassie, to Karen, to Nichole and back again. We were missing pretty big pieces from all of their lives and nothing really worked that well.

The setting of Washington is one that Macomber has used before in her books/series and I wish that we had gotten more of it included in this book. She didn't use Seattle or any other part of Washington like she usually does.

The ending left things up in the air with the character of Nichole but had a happy ending for Cassie and Karen. I really wish that Macomber had re-visited some things that were glossed over. For example, we find out through the course of the book that their was money left to Karen and Nichole with their dying mother asking them to make sure they gave some to Cassie too. However, neither Karen and Nichole do so. Instead there are vague discussions and ignoring the fact that they are pretty much not adhering to their mother's wishes. There is also a pretty big incident that had huge repercussions for the character of Karen that was ultimately ignored too.

This was definitely not my favorite Macomber. ( )