by Colleen Oakley
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 368
Format: eARC
Buy the Book: Amazon
Goodreads: Sometimes all you need is one person to really see you.
Piper Parrish's life on Frick Island—a tiny, remote town smack in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay—is nearly perfect. Well, aside from one pesky detail: Her darling husband, Tom, is dead. When Tom's crab boat capsized and his body wasn't recovered, Piper, rocked to the core, did a most peculiar thing: carried on as if her husband was not only still alive, but right there beside her, cooking him breakfast, walking him to the docks each morning, meeting him for their standard Friday night dinner date at the One-Eyed Crab. And what were the townspeople to do but go along with their beloved widowed Piper?
Anders Caldwell’s career is not going well. A young ambitious journalist, he’d rather hoped he’d be a national award-winning podcaster by now, rather than writing fluff pieces for a small town newspaper. But when he gets an assignment to travel to the remote Frick Island and cover their boring annual Cake Walk fundraiser, he stumbles upon a much more fascinating tale: an entire town pretending to see and interact with a man who does not actually exist. Determined it’s the career-making story he’s been needing for his podcast, Anders returns to the island to begin covert research and spend more time with the enigmatic Piper—but he has no idea out of all the lives he’s about to upend, it’s his that will change the most.
Kritters Thoughts: Colleen Oakley is an author that I read without reading a synopsis and just dive in. So, a book set on an island not far from where I live and a woman who is grieving the early loss of her husband and a journalist who is in need of that story to lift his career. I wasn't so sure when I started, but I fell in love with the people on this island and the journalist who is waffling between his career and his personal life.
For me, one of the really fun aspects of this book was that while Anders is a traditional journalist working in print, he also does podcasts and I loved reading some of his scripts and watching his subscriptions/downloads go up. It was fun to incorporate that medium in a book and I wonder how it could be done uniquely in the audiobook. Anders was also just a great character himself. The internal struggle of putting your career or your personal life first and how often people have to make decisions on what comes first was enjoyable to read.
Piper Parrish was interesting. I waffled back and forth throughout the book how I felt about her and am still waffling as I write this review a few days later. I wasn't so sure how to react to her response to her tragedy and then was even questioning if she was being real and authentic, so I really debated about her! Thankfully I adored Anders, so he stole the show or book for me!
Maybe not one of my favorite Colleen Oakley books, but I still enjoyed it as she had some fun characters in an interesting premise.
Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row
Ebook 2021 Challenge: 59 out of 100
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one copy of this book free of charge from Berkley 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.
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