204 Rosewood Lane by Debbie Macomber
Welcome to Cedar Cove – a small town with a big heart! Grace Sherman’s life was happy and untroubled – until her husband just disappeared. She’s spent the last six months desperately searching for an answer. What could be so awful that a devoted husband and father would go without a note or a warning?But life can – and does – go on. Cedar Cove is abuzz with talk of weddings and babies. Justine – the only daughter of Grace’s best friend, Judge Olivia Lockhart – recently eloped and is blissfully happy. Grace’s daughter, Kelly, just had a baby. And it looks like her older daughter, Maryellen, is seeing someone new, someone she’s keeping a secret…Then there’s Jack, who’s been pursuing a romance with Olivia, and Zach and Rosemary Cox, who’re having a few problems. And Grace’s own mystery – will she ever find out what happened to her husband?
This is the second novel in the Cedar Cove series by Debbie Macomber and as with her other work, I enjoyed this book. In this series Macomber has kept story lines open at the end of books and continued them on the in the next. In this particular novel the story of Grace and her missing husband is the main storyline continued. I like how Macomber doesn’t wrap everything up in one book, because I sometimes find this a bit rushed. Doing it this way allows Macomber to explore the story more.
That said, there were stories in the novel that I felt were not explored sufficiently enough. In 204 Rosewood Lane, Charlotte is taken ill with cancer. She has her surgery, and a few pages later is up and fine. For a big topic like cancer, it is breezed over and that bugged me. I felt more could have been made of it – the illness and its affects could have been looked at and included more than it was.
I was surprised by the reason of Dan’s disappearance. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I think Macomber hid that outcome well, and it really was sad. I felt Grace’s pain as she experienced it. With other Macomber novels, she has written some lovely characters – people I can relate too and believe in. This book was no exception and I really felt for Grace as she is so easy to like.
And of course, Macomber leaves the book with another mystery waiting to be solved…I found that made me want to read the next novel in the series straight after I had finished this one. I found this another enjoyable Macomber novel. She is my favourite chick-lit author, and I was not let down.
8/10