It’s just a coincidence that this is the second Mary Alice Monroe book I’ve read in the last several months. It just happened to be a free kindle book offering and I can’t pass up books that are set in locations I’d love to live or at least spend enough time in to know whether I’d like to live there or not. This novel, set on the Isle of Palms outside Charleston, South Carolina involves an aging mother, Lovie, her runaway adult daughter Cara, a pregnant waif Toy, and of course, a handsomely rugged single man, Brett. I won’t go into the details of the story,you can read a recap of it anywhere, suffice it to say, it is a read well worth your time.

It is the first in a three book series: The Beach House, Beach House Memories and Swimming Lessons. While reading Beach House, written in 2009, I kept thinking that I had read part of this story somewhere else. I knew I hadn’t read this very story before, but parts of Lovie’s story were ringing a bell. Although I don’t remember reading it, I must have read Beach House Memories, that, although it was written after Beach House, it tells Lovie’s story. Swimming Lessons is Toy’s story.

The Beach House has been made into a Hallmark movie starring Addie McDowell as Lovie, Minka Kelly as Cara, Makenzie Vega as Toy and Chad Michael Murry as Brett. The movie premiered on the Hallmark channel in April 2018. Just looking at the trailer for this movie, it appears that Lovie, Cara and Brett all appear at least ten years younger than they are in the book. This is somewhat of a letdown. None of them look old enough to portray believably the more mature characters in the book. Guess I’ll skip that movie.