Review: The Hideaway by Lauren K Denton

The Hideaway

by Lauren K Denton

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Pages: 352

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  When her grandmother’s will wrenches Sara back home from New Orleans, she learns more about Margaret Van Buren in the wake of her death than she ever did in life.

After her last remaining family member dies, Sara Jenkins goes home to The Hideaway, her grandmother Mags's ramshackle B&B in Sweet Bay, Alabama. She intends to quickly tie up loose ends then return to her busy life and thriving antique shop in New Orleans. Instead, she learns Mags has willed her The Hideaway and charged her with renovating it—no small task considering Mags’s best friends, a motley crew of senior citizens, still live there.

Rather than hurrying back to New Orleans, Sara stays in Sweet Bay and begins the biggest house-rehabbing project of her career. Amid Sheetrock dust, old memories, and a charming contractor, she discovers that slipping back into life at The Hideaway is easier than she expected.

Then she discovers a box Mags left in the attic with clues to a life Sara never imagined for her grandmother. With help from Mags’s friends, Sara begins to piece together the mysterious life of bravery, passion, and choices that changed Mags’s destiny in both marvelous and devastating ways.

When an opportunistic land developer threatens to seize The Hideaway, Sara is forced to make a choice—stay in Sweet Bay and fight for the house and the people she’s grown to love or leave again and return to her successful but solitary life in New Orleans. 

Kritters Thoughts:  A dual narrative that hit the spot on a spring weekend.  Sara returns to a small town in Alabama as her grandmother has passed away and she must return to pick up the pieces of the town that raised her.  Mags/Maggie/Margaret is the grandmother that raised her after her parents die with Sara at a young age and she raises her granddaughter, but she didn't reveal herself much to her granddaughter.

I love a dual narrative when the reader knows what is going on in both stories and how they match up from the beginning.  The reader knows that Mags is Sara's grandmother, but the mystery lies in the life that Mags had before Sara was alive.  There is a quote in the book and at the time of writing this review, I can't find for the life of me, so I will semi quote it - "Isn't it interesting that our grandparents have this whole life before we are born and we don't know to ask about it until we are older and they are possibly gone."  I don't have any grandparents alive and haven't for awhile and this book in a sad way reminded me how much I wish they were alive to tell me the stories of their childhood to/thru adulthood.

This book hit me in just the right spot.  I loved curling up with it for a day on a rainy spring weekend.  I was excited to read that this was her first book and hopefully she has quite a few more up her sleeve!


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.