It's been years since Abby O'Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores. The Maryland town her father built has too many sad memories and Abby too few spare moments, thanks to her demanding Wall Street career, the crumbling of her marriage and energetic twin daughters. Then one panicked phone call from her youngest sister brings her racing back home to protect Jess's dream of renovating the charming Inn at Eagle Point.
But saving the inn from foreclosure means dealing not only with her own fractured family, but also with Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago. Trace can be a roadblock to her plans…or proof that second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.
In Chesapeake Bay, Jess O'Brien realizes she is in financial trouble and the inn she is renovating may have to go on the market. Jess asks her older sister Abby Winters, a financial genius, to come home to help save the inn from foreclosure.
Abby plans to assist Jess a bit, but will not stay long as she and the rest of the family are somewhat estrange though she took care of them when mom deserted them. To her chagrin, her former lover, Trace Riley holds the mortgage paper that Jess must pay off or lose everything. He demands she stay in town if she wants to buy time for her sibling. Abby never forgot Trace and still wants him, but a bad marriage and relocating her five years old twins (Caitlyn and Carrie) at a time the ex Wes wants full custody cause her to hesitate as she grasps she who hesitates may be lost, but she feels lost either way.
Leaving Serenity, South Carolina, Sherryl Woods introduces her fans to the Chesapeake Shores series with an engaging contemporary family drama. The cast is solid especially the lead female protagonist who finds herself feeling engulfed by a 360 degree blob as her sister, other family members, her kids, her ex and her former lover place conflicting demands on her. Although too many plot machinations occur to limit the heroine's choices detract from the tale (making Abby choose would have left her more vulnerable from those she failed to satiate), fans will enjoy the story of the over-achiever.
Abby winters is the oldest of five children and help raised her siblings after her mother and father divorced. Abby eventually left for NY work where she has a job on wallstreet, has been divorced and is the mother of two twin girls.
Jess is the youngest of the five siblings and is trying to open in inn and she runs into financial trouble. She calls Abby to come down to Chesapeake shores to help her out. But leaves out the guy in charge of her loan is Abby's high school sweetheart Trace.
Trace makes Abby stay in Cheapshores to be in charge of Jess's finances. Trace and Abby work on there relationship with roadblocks along the way which include Abby's ex Wes, her parents, and siblings.
This was the first book I've read by Sherryl Woods and I really enjoyed it. I'm waiting for Bree's story at the end of this month I can't wait.
Personal and public agendas are flying in the first of this new fictional romance series. The O'Brien clan is quite a motley crew of individuals who have been so busy pushing their memories into oblivion as possible that the fireworks are always near the surface. The sparks stem from fury in some scenes and oh so fiery, repressed passion in others! Whichever turn the reader takes, he or she is bound to be mesmerized by this vibrant family, beginning with Abby O'Brien Winters, a woman who thinks she knows her own mind - today at least!
Abby, divorced and the mother of twin girls, has a successful financial career in Manhattan, New York. She desperately could use some vacation time but is still surprised by the desperate call she receives from her sister, Jess. Abby drops all and travels to the lovely Chesapeake Shores in Maryland, a community her father built but never really stuck around long enough to cement with his children. Abby and Jess have very different reactions to their mother leaving when they were very young and to their father, the master of incompleteness. Communication is sorely in need of healing, if not an almost impossible goal for either to obtain.
For now, Abby must contend with helping Jess save the Inn at Eagle Point, which is in dire financial condition and which Jess will lose unless Abby agrees to an old lover, Trace Riley's demand that she help to manage the Inn in order to assure it can survive with an adequate income generated from its guests. The demand is outrageous but Abby doesn't have much choice if she wishes to help her fragile (in some ways) sibling. But complications will arrive there as well; an ex-husband who uses Abby's move to further his own needs, a threat to take her to court for legal, full-time custody of the twins.
These are just a few of the conflicts racing through these lively pages. While there are multiple problems, they are depicted in a smooth, linear fashion that never confuses the reader.
Sherryl Woods has created the first of a funny, challenging, heart-rending, passionate and endearing story, a family portrait so powerful that the reader will eagerly await more in another O'Brien tale in the near future!
