Colleen Faulkner

An average 3-star read for me. If you like women's fiction, then you might enjoy it more. This is a cozy little read about friendship.

Set in summer of 2006 at a beach side cottage in Albany Beach, Delaware, four life-time friends, now in their forties, meet every summer for a month long vacation together. This may be their last year together, as one, McKenzie, is facing terminal cancer. As they deal with thoughts of losing her, they each have secrets of their past that unfold. Lillie is pregnant with her first child, but is ashamed that she experimented in prostitution. Janine was molested by her father, Buddy, who was also a cop, beginning at age 12. When the girls were 14, Aurora killed Buddy when she found him in Janine's bed. Aurora had multiple problems in life besides dealing with killing Janine's father, she later gave up her son at birth to the father and this also weighed heavily on her mind. The girls find support in each other as they work through their troubled past.… (meer)

I checked this out from the library thinking it was a romance but it's not. It's the second book of a trilogy about a serial killer. You don't find out the bad guy in the book. He doesn't get caught etc. I totally was not expecting that. The heroine has a relationship with a much younger man that you expect to have a HEA but it doesn't. They go their separate ways with him saying maybe I'll look you up sometime. There were really two suspense plots going on. One was the serial killer who was targeting Jillian the heroine while still managing to kill several other women. She has martial arts training that you expect to come into play when the killer tries to catch her. But instead, her ex husband comes out of nowhere to try to kill her, the bad guys gives up on her and moves on to another victim and the hero goes back to school. I'm not even sure you could call him a hero. It seemed like he was going to be but in the end he neither helps her with the killer or the evil ex. That being said I did love the character of Ty who was a 23 year old surfer/ lifeguard who spends the summer making out with Jillian and helping her find out who she is. I liked it right up until I turned that last page and found out that not only is there no HEA, but there is no resolution to the serial killer plot.

4 stars for the story/ 1 star for the ending results in 2 stars total… (meer)

Alicia has raised her daughter Chloe despite the many difficulties (single parent, college professor, Chloe's Down's Syndrome) she was facing. So when Chloe announces her intent to marry a boy she hardly knows, Alicia freaks out. This book follows a couple years in the lives of Alicia, Chloe, Thomas and the people who love them. It was one of those books that you know something is going to happen and it's not going to be good but you don't really know what it is and then when it happens, you think ohhhh yeah, I get it now. It was an okay story. If I wasn't compelled to find out what happened, I'm not sure I would have finished it.

Received from NetGalley… (meer)