Thank you so much to the team at Harlequin for inviting me on this blog tour for The Sea Glass Cottage by RaeAnne Thayne! I’m definitely in the presence of a lot of amazing bloggers so be sure to check out the other posts that will be popping up all over the place. I’m so glad to be a part of this tour and share my thoughts with you on this book.

From the New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne comes a brand-new novel for fans of Debbie Macomber and Susan Wiggs. RaeAnne Thayne tells the story of an emotional homecoming that brings hope and healing to three generations of women.

The life Olivia Harper always dreamed of isn’t so dreamy these days. The 16-hour work days are unfulfilling and so are things with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when she hears that her estranged mother, Juliet, has been seriously injured in a car accident, Liv has no choice but to pack up her life and head home to beautiful Cape Sanctuary on the Northern California coast.

It’s just for a few months—that’s what Liv keeps telling herself. But the closer she gets to Cape Sanctuary, the painful memories start flooding back: Natalie, her vibrant, passionate older sister who downward-spiraled into addiction. The fights with her mother who enabled her sister at every turn. The overdose that took Natalie, leaving her now-teenaged daughter, Caitlin, an orphan.

As Liv tries to balance her own needs with those of her injured mother and an obstinate, resentful fifteen-year-old, it becomes clear that all three Harper women have been keeping heartbreaking secrets from one another. And as those secrets are revealed, Liv, Juliet, and Caitlin will see that it’s never too late—or too early—to heal family wounds and find forgiveness.

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New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains where she lives with her family. Her books have won numerous honors, including six RITA Award nominations from Romance Writers of America and Career Achievement and Romance Pioneer awards from RT Book Reviews. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website at www.raeannethayne.com.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Netgalley, and HQN Books for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I think that Thayne may be another of my favorite authors, because there hasn’t been a book that I’ve read by her that I didn’t like in some shape or form. It’s been pretty positive so far, and even though I may not be a sucker for romance novels all the time, I’ve been able to let this frozen heart of mine thaw out a bit and sigh a bit after finishing the story I get to read.

Whenever there is a book about a female character living the life that she always dreamed of, but finding that it wasn’t as cracked up to be as she thought it would be, it literally hurts my soul and makes me question whether or not I really think my dream life will live up to my expectations. It seems to be so much more common that while we think we know what we want – and maybe we really do – there are probably some aspects that will play out in a totally different way to what we need in life to grow.

I feel like this book also spoke to me on a more personal level because I have really been avoiding going back home, like to permanently live. Maybe because I haven’t had some good experiences growing up, and I feel like that was a lot of my own fault back then, but I just feel like I don’t know if I could go back home unless it was an absolute emergency, like Olivia’s case was. Granted, I wouldn’t want to wait until something happened to my mother to move back home and help take care of her, but it makes me wonder if that would be the catalyst for me to go home sometimes.

I love when books can bring me back to my own reality, when I’ve been in the fantasy world too long. I’ve think I mentioned that books like these really help cleanse my palate when I need a little break from the constant “having to save the world because humans messed up” thing or just having to really think about the world-building and the magic system that I have in other books. I think that Thayne has been doing such a great job with her books lately – at least from when I first started reading her novels – and I look forward to reading more of her romance novels.