A review by imbookingit
Coming Home: The Chesapeake Diaries by Mariah Stewart
4.0
My previous experience with Mariah Stewart has been with her romantic suspense novels. The (absolutely beautiful) pastel cover on this led me to expect something much more sedate. The cover copy left me unsure: "sister's wedding", "peaceful town" both go with the quieter story, "FBI", "victim again", "fight her demons" all led me to think there might be more of an excitement factor.
The book was both, and they worked together very nicely for me.
At its heart, Coming Home is a book about people in a small town. I started out writing that it was the characters that made the book work for me, but that isn't quite true. I liked Vanessa, and I found her story interesting, but she's not really going to stick with me. Same with Grady. He had interesting demons to fight, but he was in many ways a stock romance character leading man (although I did like his sense of humor with his sister).
It was the town-- the collection of secondary characters-- that really pulled me in. Some of them will probably be getting their own books down the line, although Grace (the woman that retired from the local hotel to run the local paper) seems likely to keep to her observer role. There were just enough characters to be interesting without being overwhelming.
And yes, there was suspense. There was a bad guy doing bad things, and several ex-FBI characters to go after the culprit. It's not a mystery, since there's not much time spent wondering who it is, but rather how to stop the danger.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book, and am looking forward to continuing with the series.
The book was both, and they worked together very nicely for me.
At its heart, Coming Home is a book about people in a small town. I started out writing that it was the characters that made the book work for me, but that isn't quite true. I liked Vanessa, and I found her story interesting, but she's not really going to stick with me. Same with Grady. He had interesting demons to fight, but he was in many ways a stock romance character leading man (although I did like his sense of humor with his sister).
It was the town-- the collection of secondary characters-- that really pulled me in. Some of them will probably be getting their own books down the line, although Grace (the woman that retired from the local hotel to run the local paper) seems likely to keep to her observer role. There were just enough characters to be interesting without being overwhelming.
And yes, there was suspense. There was a bad guy doing bad things, and several ex-FBI characters to go after the culprit. It's not a mystery, since there's not much time spent wondering who it is, but rather how to stop the danger.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book, and am looking forward to continuing with the series.