Robin Jones Gunn's Cottage By the Sea ~ Reviewed

COTTAGE BY THE SEA
Robin Jones Gunn
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Howard Books; Original edition (July 3, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416583459

Description:

A daughter’s gift of time, a father’s silent wish.

Erin Bryce and her best friend, Sharlene, count the day they start their wedding planning business as a very happy day. So much so that they name their company The Happiest Day to reflect the fulfillment of their long-held dream as well as their clients’ longing for a wedding celebration to match the exhilaration of being in love. As a bonus, the two women utilize their business to help Erin’s son Jordan and his fiancée, Sierra, plan a grand wedding.

But the two friends aren’t prepared for the cloud moving in to cover the sunny, successful start of their business. Erin’s father, who lives in a small coastal Oregon community with his brusque, downright odd second wife, Delores, develops a medical problem that puts him in the hospital. Erin responds by rushing from Southern California to her father’s—and oh, yeah, Delores’s—cottage by the sea.

What greets Erin when she arrives sends her tumbling down a bewildering path to a different kind of happiest day. Her journey tosses her through highs and lows of hurt and healing, betrayal and renewal, wrong assumptions righted, and the brightest future one could ever hope for. All just around the corner, at the cottage by the sea.


Review:
Cottage By The Sea is about a woman named Erin Bryce.  As the story begins, Erin and her best friend Sharlene have just opened up their own business, The Happiest Day, meant to help brides-to-be plan their wedding day.  However, the first day the business is opened a tragedy occurs.  Erin’s father, who remarried after the passing of her mother, has a stroke, and Erin feels she must travel to Oregon to check on him.  Upon arriving, she sees he’s doing ok, so she returns home, vowing to keep in better touch with him and visit more often.  But as her business booms, and one of her sons plans a wedding, time gets away and she doesn’t make it.  A year and a half later, when her father doesn’t make it to her sons wedding, she calls, only to find out he’s had a severe stroke a few weeks previously.  Erin rushes up there to be with him, and ends up staying longer than expected as his condition worsens.  However, while there, she begins to find the peace of God which had been lacking in her life for so long because she had been so busy.  
 
This book was a tad slow going at first, but I really enjoyed it.  I have a picture in my mind of this charming “cottage by the sea” that Erin’s father lived in, and would love to visit there myself.  Mostly, though, I liked how the situation was able to bring Erin and her father closer together, and help Erin re-prioritize the important things in her life.  This was a great book.
 
Reviewed by: Sarah Meyers