Review: The Beach at Painter's Cove by Shelley Noble

The Beach at Painter's Cove

by Shelley Noble

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 432

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Harper Collins

Goodreads:  The Whitaker family’s Connecticut mansion, Muses by the Sea, has always been a haven for artists, a hotbed of creativity, extravagances, and the occasional scandal. Art patrons for generations, the Whitakers supported strangers but drained the life out of each other. Now, after being estranged for years, four generations of Whitaker women find themselves once again at The Muses.

Leo, the Whitaker matriarch, lives in the rambling mansion crammed with artwork and junk. She plans to stay there until she joins her husband Wes on the knoll overlooking the cove and meadow where they first met. Her sister-in-law Fae, the town eccentric, is desperate to keep a secret she has been hiding for years.

Jillian, is a jet setting actress, down on her luck, and has run out of men to support her. She thinks selling The Muses will make life easier for her mother, Leo, and Fae by moving them into assisted living. The sale will also bring her the funds to get herself back on top.

Issy, Jillian’s daughter, has a successful life as a museum exhibit designer that takes her around the world. But the Muses and her grandmother are the only family she’s known and when her sister leaves her own children with Leo, Issy knows she has to step in to help.

Steph, is only twelve-years-old and desperately needs someone to fire her imagination and bring her out of her shell. What she begins to discover at the Muses could change the course of her future. 

As Issy martials the family together to restore the mansion and catalogue the massive art collection, a surprising thing happens. Despite storms and moonlight dancing, diva attacks and cat fights, trips to the beach and flights of fancy, these four generations of erratic, dramatic women may just find a way to save the Muses and reunite their family.

Kritters Thoughts:  In Connecticut, a family has lived for a few generations in a beautiful home.  One of the descendants has moved to New York and is called home when things are falling apart and like the prodigal son she goes home to try to pick up the pieces and put this big extended crazy family back together.

I love family dramas, especially dramas that are multi generational they are my jam!  I love reading how one generation's decisions impacts the next and even how grandmother could impact two generations below her and in this book the characters get to see up close and personal how they affect what comes after them.  Leo was the best matriarch that I have read in a book in awhile and I kind of LOVED that this book was a book chock full of women with barely a man in sight!

At times the writing in this book didn't completely work.  I felt like there were some repetitive parts and could have used with some bits and pieces taken out.  It didn't take away too much from the story to inhibit me from still liking it.

I was a Shelley Noble fan before I started this book and I have to say I am a Shelley Noble fan after!  I will be excited to hear what her next book will be about.



Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

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.