Shoreline Drive (Sanctuary Island #2)
by Lily Everett
Blurb:
Dr.
Ben Faulkner is a veterinarian on warm, welcoming Sanctuary Island, a tiny
refuge for wild horses tucked off the Atlantic coast. Though he’s dedicated his
life to healing animals and rescuing the ones no one wants, Ben is nursing deep
wounds of his own. After tragedy tore his family apart, he gave up his dreams
of finding happiness long ago…until Merry Preston arrives on the island.
Vivacious, friendly, and instantly loveable, Merry is everything Ben is not.
She’s also nine months pregnant and attempting to carve out a new life for
herself and her unborn child.
Though
Ben tries to keep his distance, when a raging storm cuts them off from the
mainland, he’s forced to help bring her new baby into the world. It’s a
harrowing experience that leaves him with one great certainty: I want these two
to be my family. Seeing his opportunity, he makes a dramatic proposal to the
young mother: a marriage of convenience. If Merry marries him, he’ll draw up a
contract naming her son as his heir and promising to provide for them both. But
as they’ll learn, love is more than a business proposition…and it’ll take all
the magic hidden in Sanctuary Island to turn Ben’s proposal into something real
and lasting.
Themes: contemporary
Rating: 3.25 stars
Heat Rating:
Review:
Lily Everett returns to the small island town
of Sanctuary Island in her second novel, Shoreline Drive. The story of an emotionally repressed man
meeting the first woman to ever touch his heart, a new mom who has given light
to his dark world and reminds him that he isn't as cold-hearted as he tries to
be. This series has taken a different
direction than most series, with two short novella trilogies preceding each full length novel,
though they aren't actually connected, just occurring on the same island. This second full length novel in the series
is the story of the sister of the female lead in book one and actually overlaps a bit in time,
with the birth of Merry’s son in both stories.
Everett’s novels are full of emotion, family, and character growth,
delves more into the sentimental side of romances and less into the passionate,
which is in opposition of her writing as Louisa Edwards. If you haven’t read
the first book in this series, Sanctuary Island, you will be missing out on a
lot of the deeper emotional issues with Merry and her family, but Everett
provides enough details you won’t be lost in the overall plot.
The
story of Ben and Merry’s whirlwind romance begins with the birth of her son,
Alex, who was helped into the world by Ben, the former big city doctor turned
small time country veterinarian. This moment is the turning point for Ben, showing him the one thing he needs in his
life, a family, and he wants that family to be Merry and Alex. Fast forward several months and Ben is still
trying to figure out how to get what he wants, his own nature getting in his
way and making it harder to get close to Merry.
Being the sensible and practical guy he is he comes up with the perfect
solution: a marriage of convenience, giving Alex a father and Merry the support
she needs. His ulterior motive of course is having a chance to make her fall in love with him. And his plan seems to be working as he and
Merry grow closer and closer, forming a family with little Alex and providing
Ben the settled and loving life he’s always wanted.
But when his cold and calculating parents try to drive a wedge between
them, Ben’s fears and insecurities flare and he finds that losing his dream
will be even more painful than never having had it at all. Will Merry be able to convince him that he is
worth her love and make them a family or will their HEA be forever lost?
Merry
is a woman on the verge, to be clichéd for a minute. She has made a lot of changes in her life as
motherhood approached and her life is altered drastically when Alex is added
to the already complicated familial issues she is dealing with as she meets her
mother again for the first time as an adult and attempts to have a relationship
with her. She is struggling to maintain her usual happy façade as she deals
with her mom and the new feelings she developed about that relationship after
she became a mom herself. When Ben, whom
she has lusted after for ages, but she believed hated her, offers her an odd but
welcome opportunity to change her circumstances, she is determined to embrace
this opportunity for what it is—a simple business arrangement. But her feelings for Ben are confusing to say
the least and soon she can no longer deny that Ben is just the man to give her
heart and her son to. She is a woman who
understands emotion and the labyrinth of feelings involved in all the relationships
she is juggling. I found myself liking
her more and more as she finds her footing with Ben, Alex, and even her
mom. Watching her fight to keep her new
family intact, reminded me of a momma wolf protecting her mate and cub, nothing
more beautiful than that.
Ben
on the other hand is an enigma. He has
had a life of emotional neglect, devastation, and sadness that has led him to
make the decision to lock his heart away behind an impenetrable wall. But his walls are no match for Merry and
especially Alex. From the moment he
assists with bringing Alex into the world, his heart tells him that his life is
meant to include them both. His plan to achieve
his goals are interesting to be sure, but I can see the appeal in that plan,
giving Merry the chance to see past his cantankerousness and his resistance to emotional
connections to the broken and bleeding man beneath. When he finally opens up to Merry and shows
his vulnerabilities to her, I fell a little bit in love with him myself. I wish we had gotten to explore more the
connection formed between him and Merry, but seeing him interact with Alex
showed me the young boy that was neglected by his own parents and the man’s
abilities to overcome his loveless upbringing to become an open hearted and
extremely loving man who is determined to give Alex and Merry the love they
need to thrive. And in giving that love and
making that family, the hole in his heart will begin to heal over and make the
pain he’s be mired in lessen enough to give him the chance to grow.
As
a side note, there is a continuing story of Taylor, Merry and Ella’s sort-of
younger step-sister, and the changes she is going through in her teenage
years. There are issues with her
jealousy over Merry and Ella’s return to their mother’s life, Taylor’s problems
with troublemaking, and even boy issues.
Seeing Taylor deal with her teenage angst, as well as watching her grow
a bit here and there, shows me that someday she will be a wonderful young
woman, and I’m hoping we will get to see her find romance in the future.
Shoreline Drive
was a good read, a story with lots of heart, family, and the love that can form
in the most unexpected of places. Merry
is a woman that is pulled in many directions, but providing a safe and secure
home for her son, one that will allow him to thrive is the most important thing
to her now. Ben is a bit of an ass to
those around him, but the angry front he shows the world is just to keep him
from forming attachments and getting hurt.
His decision to escape his old life and close himself off from those who
would befriend him, has left him without the skills to woo the woman he is
coming to love. The plan he hatches is
hilarious and simple in its design, but when dealing with life and love,
nothing is ever as clear-cut as we’d like.
As Merry and Ben, especially, worked through their issues and find their
love together, I found myself drawn to the story more and more, and in the end
when their family is assured and their lives bound together irrecoverably, I knew
that they would find their way together to an HEA. I will say that I was surprised
by how short this novel was in terms of their relationship and I would have
loved a more in depth look at their lives individually, not just as Alex’s
parents. Maybe a few nights of them
being together without having the baby around and being the focus, would have
bumped the story up another level, but I liked it all the same. I’m looking forward to whatever’s next in the
series and getting a chance to see more of the residents of Sanctuary Island.
*eARC provided by publisher (via
netgalley) for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review. No
compensation was provided.
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