Debbie Macomber definitely has another gem with Cottage By the Sea, and I predict it will be a best-seller. Imagine the worst that can happen to your life. What to do you do and where do you go to heal? I find being near the water to be a balm and so does Annie Marlow. The pieces begin to fit together for her in this small town.


The characters in the book are very engaging and complex. They definitely drew me in because each one had their own story within this story.


The coastal setting is more than just a backdrop for the story. I can nearly hear the waves crashing while Lennon, Keaton's dog runs chasing his stick. It is a moment such as this that Annie and Keaton meet. Keaton is an intriguing, yet quiet man who magically links everyone together. It is through Keaton that so many of the good things come to play for our characters. I keep hitting the back button lest I give away the whole story. It is times like this I wish I was in a book club, tea in hand and discussing the promise of this book. I recommend this book with 5 stars to anyone who enjoys Debbie Macomber's style and a connection to the ocean.

Cottage by the Sea

Debbie Macomber



Wow, all I can say is, this story blew me away! Keep the tissues close by as you are reading COTTAGE BY THE SEA by Debbie Macomber. She will have your emotions all over the place. Once I started reading, it was very hard to stop! The twists and turns made it impossible to put down, as I had to know what was going to happen to Annie after so much heartache! What an awesome story. All of Debbie's characters feel genuine and relatable and put your emotions on one heck of a roller coaster ride. As you are reading, you will find yourself cheering for all of them, praying they can work out their problems and be happy once again. You will also wonder how much heartache a person can stand before they completely break down and shatter.


COTTAGE BY THE SEA is all about family and the past and the secrets that come out are heart tugging. It had me flipping through the pages like a woman on a mission. I had to know what was going to happen to Annie and Keaton and all the secondary characters. Annie is shattered after a family tragedy that leaves her all alone in the world. How will she ever get over her grief? She decides the only place she can be happy is at the cottage her family rented every summer. Maybe she can find the meaning of her life once again. COTTAGE BY THE SEA is a heart tugging story that will hold you hostage until the very last page. Once you start reading, it will be very hard to put down!


COTTAGE BY THE SEA is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in 2018 so far. I was instantly emotionally invested in all of the characters. My heart broke for Keaton and Annie and for all they were dealing with but Keaton shredded me. He had such a lonely and loveless childhood and no one deserves to grow up like that. His Dad blamed him for his mother leaving them. Who puts that kind of guilt on a child? Debbie Macomber really knows how to write about family drama, heartbreak, and forgiveness. I can not wait to read more by this wonderful and heart tugging author. I have many of her older books to read and that brings me so much joy and happiness to know they are waiting for me!


I received a complimentary copy of this book from Ballantine Books through Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Cottage by the Sea is a Beauty and the Beast tale.
Keaton sees a young girl on the beach and her face is fixed on his mind’s eye. He is too tongue-tied and embarrassed to speak to her. Then, just like summer, she’s gone.
Years later, Annie suffers a devastating loss. One of her closest friends, her cousin, tells her to find her “happy” place. She goes back to that same beach, and Keaton sees her once again. She wants to stay in town and he helps her to bring her “happy” place back to life.
Their relationship blossoms, but they’re both holding back. Day after day, week after week, Annie and Keaton fall deeper and deeper in love. She doesn’t want his pity, and he’s sure she’ll eventually leave him.
Then Annie receives the offer of a lifetime, and Keaton removes her from his life. It takes coming out of his shell to find his girl on the beach once again.

"Cottage by the Sea" by Debbie Macomber
What an emotional read !! I loved this story. I felt this story. I was gifted an ARC via NetGalley ... one of my truly lucky days. If you read the blurb you know ... it's a story of heartbreaking loss and sometimes the painful - recovery - survival - repercussions - of the losses suffered by those we love. A really good story of the power of love to break hearts, and, to heal hearts. Life is a learning journey.

Unfortunately, this was not one of my favorite Debbie Macomber books. I was intrigued when I read the author's note, and felt some dread at the beginning when I realized what was going to happen, but I didn't have a great emotional connection with the characters. I think there were just too many deeply wounded characters for me to really connect and enjoy it. The setting was nice, and I enjoyed the descriptions of the town, and I enjoyed Annie - it was interesting to follow her journey to healing after such a tragedy in life. I think (for me) there needed to be one or two great happy, stable people throughout the story to pull it all together.

Awww... Keaton, you had me at strong silent type. This story went deeper than I thought it would and I loved that about this book. I am always a fan of Debbie Macomber but this will forever be one of my favorites. It's a very fast read only because it's so good.

Incredibly heartwarming and sweet! I absolutely loved my visit to the little town of Oceanside. With characters so real they feel like family, this book is sure to be a hit with new and old fans of Debbie Macomber’s work.

Out of all the characters I love Keaton the most. Such a refreshing change from the usual “hero” in a love story.

Extremely well written and captivating from start to finish, this is a must read!

Cottage by the Sea is easily in my top 5 books, and I found myself at the end all too soon. It is my sincerest hope as a reader and fan of Debbie Macomber, that she will revisit these characters and the community of Oceanside in other books.

This story followed some of Ms Macomber’s style . It was a book about loss, friendships, rebuilding lives, overcoming tragedy and hope.
That said, it was not my favorite story . The plot nor the characters truly engaged me.
I received this copy from Netgalley. The opinions expressed are solely my own.

After a tragic Thanksgiving Annie is trying to get her life back. Going to a place with good memories helps. Annie incounters two very strange people with their own troubles. This book is a fast moving story. The characters are well developed. I really enjoyed reading this book.
Debbie MacComber has another winner!

Annie Marlow, living in Los Angeles and working a s a physician's assistant, has plans with her cousin and some friends for Thanksgiving day. When her mother calls just a few days before wanting her to come home for Thanksgiving instead, Annie stands her ground, and refuses to change her plans at the last minute. For a variety of reasons, I am cheering her on at this point, but I also know that this is a precursor to major guilt.

Early on Thanksgiving morning, she is awakened by a phone call from her aunt. A mudslide has swept her parents' home, and entire neighborhood, into the river. Her parents, brother and sister-in-law, and toddler niece, are all dead.

She has to return to Washington to deal with awful aftermath, painfully drawn out because of the class action lawsuit that follows. Annie can't deal with that from Los Angeles, so she stays in Washington, struggling with guilt and depression as well as the legal complexities.

Finally, prodded by her cousin, Gabby, she gets away from Seattle, to the seaside town where her family rented a cottage every summer when she and her brother Mike were growing up. She manages, with some difficulty, to rent the same cottage, and lands a job at the local medical clinic.

Annie also meets Keaton, whom she met just once, the last summer her family vacationed there. Keaton is big, silent, and hard to get to know, yet they are drawn to each other.

Her landlady, Mellie Johnson, is even harder to get to know--a complete recluse, prickly, far more withdrawn than Keaton ever dreamed of being.

These three, plus Keaton's friend Preston, head of the local animal shelter, shouldn't be the start of a wonderful friendship, yet they are.

This is a very character-driven novel, and the characters, both the protagonists and the problem people in their lives, are complex and interesting. I was completely drawn in and needed to keep reading.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

‘Cottage by the Sea’ by Debbie Macomber is a wonderful and heartwarming book. Exactly what Debbie Macomber fans have come to expect. This book captured my attention from the first chapter and I finished reading it in one day!

Debbie Macomber is a master of character development. The characters in this book are wonderful. You feel like they are your friends, co-workers and neighbors. You wish you could meet them in person. The setting is wonderful and vivid and real. You can picture every scene perfectly. You can smell the ocean, feel the rain and feel the sand between your toes. I see this book as the perfect beach read!

I loved this story and the characters! The book has all the elements of personal drama, tragedy, friendship and love to draw the reader into the depths of the story. Another winner by Debbie Macomber!

I would like to thank Debbie Macomber, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Great read. Interesting and complex characters! Story flow was good. This story makes you laugh and cry. Entertaining and engaging story lines by multiple interesting characters. Highly recommend this book.

Medical Assistant Annie loses her family in a tragic accident and tries to find solace in the town where she spent her childhood family holidays.
She finds friends and love, helps several people in the small town and is well liked by everybody. However, her loss was so horrible that she thinks about it for 50% of the book, and her love is a stalker and later on a stubborn prick.
It’s a sweet romance if not for the pre-occupation of the female protagonist with her loss and of the male protagonist with his lacking self-esteem.

Ooh, fifty shades of sadness and tragedy. As with most of Macomber's works, there is always a layer of hope buried somewhere in the midst of all the angst, drama, and wounded individuals. Not one of my favorites though but I appreciated the tie-in to actual events.

Cottage by the Sea by Debbie Macomber is another one of her wonderful romantic standalone novels. We meet Annie (our heroine ) in her younger days, when she was with her parents and brother vacationing at Oceanside. She caught the attention of Keaton (our shy and non-talkative hero), who despite his school mates constantly picking on him, he found himself wanting to befriend Annie. But shortly afterwards, her family left Oceanside, and each summer Keaton would look for her, but she never came back.

Years later, Annie is a Physician’s Assistant, and happy living in Seattle, with the friends she has made. When her mom tries to convince her to come home to visit, Annie begs off, as she wants to stay with her friends. The next day, Annie learns there was a terrible tragedy, with a mudslide destroying many homes and lives. She is devastated as not only was her mother and father killed, but so too was her brother, his wife and their baby. Alone and in deep mourning, Annie is pushed to get out and find a happy place to try to snap out of her grief.
Annie will eventually travel to her happy childhood days at the beach in Oceanside, and decides to stay for a while, since she begins to feel peace again. She will get a job with the local doctor as his assistant, with a contract for a year. When she discovers the cabin she and her family stayed in was still there, but in disrepair, she tries to rent it.

Keaton, who recognizes the grown up Annie, will help her rent the cabin by the recluse owner, Mellie. What follows is a wonderful sweet fun story that has a fantastic group of secondary characters, a slow build romance, as well as a couple we rooted for from the start.

There were many issues surrounding some of the characters. Keaton had his own issues, being a very talented artist, but unable to communicate very well, as well as having a father who was not nice. Annie was trying to overcome her deep grief, which she blames herself for surviving. Mellie was another wonderful but crazy character, as she was cold and unfriendly at the start, with a phobia, not leaving the house for 5 years.
It was so much fun to see Annie slowly force Mellie to open up and eventually become friends. Annie also earns the respect of the townsfolk, as she is very caring and knowledgeable in helping care for them. She becomes involved in helping a woman and her children from an abusive husband/father. This was a very good addition to the storyline.

With the slow built romance, it was wonderful to see Annie bring Keaton out of his shell, and in time they both knew they were falling hard for each other. Keaton fears that after a year, Annie will leave and go back to Seattle. Will Annie leave Oceanside and Keaton?

Cottage by the Sea was a wonderful heartwarming story that had us unable to put the book down. I loved every moment of this book, as Macomber outdid herself with this one. If you enjoy a story that grabs your attention, with wonderful, if not flawed characters, and a romance that was sweet, but stayed mostly in the background, then you need to read Cottage by the Sea.

BEAUTIFUL LOVE STORY!

Debbie Macomber’s Cottage by the Sea is a beautiful love story! After a terrible tragedy strikes, Annie decides to move to the one place that has always made her feel peaceful. At Oceanside, she develops deep friendships with three most most unlikely people. She also manages to discover the the thing she fears most is also the thing the thing her friend Keaton fears most. Can they trust their heart to another person after having it broken so badly in the past? Macomber weaves an beautiful story of putting broken people back together and changing their lives forever. I was provided an ARC of this book by the Publisher and NetGalley. The opinions expressed here are completely my own and without influence.

Debbie Macomber delivers a good read once again! I appreciated this book in particular because it felt like reading the older, genuine Macomber books and not the another book that follows a prescribed formula. My attention was grabbed from the beginning and held all the way through. I was invested in the characters and felt connected to them emotionally. Memorable. Well Done!

Cottage by the Sea is another heartfelt tale from prolific American novelist of more than 200 books, Debbie Macomber. Physicians assistant Annie Marlow has suffered an unfathomable loss, her entire immediate family wiped out in a tragic act of nature. Left behind with immense grief and feelings of guilt and remorse, Annie left her home and position in sunny Southern California to return to her hometown of Seattle. There she would be close by for the drawn out insurance and legal proceedings that follow. Also, her two remaining relatives, her Aunt Sherry and cousin Gabby, live in Seattle.

After 16 months living a very unhappy existence, Gabby suggests Annie think about a happy place that she can recapture good memories and pull herself from her funk. It comes to Annie that place would be Oceanside, a small town on the coast where her family spent many happy times.

Initially, Annie takes an overnight trip to Oceanside. But when she finds an ad for a PA at Oceanside’s only medical clinic she sees it as a sign that this is where she just may be able to reclaim her life and move forward.

Keaton is a gentle giant. Towering more than six feet, broad shouldered, and strong, he is a talented artist who earns a living as a contractor. His upbringing was strained, having lost his mother when very young and being barely tolerated by his father. He could have become quite menacing but made the conscious decision to be kind. He had briefly met Annie when they were kids, and while other kids took to name calling for his differences, Annie had been kind and told others to quit. This had lived with Keaton like a beacon in the dark and may have led to his defense of his friend Preston and his kindness to reclusive Mellie Johnson, who Keaton convinces to lease the little cottage that Annie and her family had visited in her youth to Annie for the next year.

This story blends these characters, all injured spirits, into a beautiful tale of humanity as they each find their way in the growth of friendship, and as the two couples negotiate their futures.

Debbie Macomber is at her finest in this story. The multifaceted characters, the lovely coastline setting, and the beautiful underlying themes make this book a real winner. I do certainly recommend this book!

Debbie Macomber always comes through with a heartwarming story and interesting characters! I feel like I’m on vacation from the world and all is well and peaceful as I read. What more could I want?

I voluntarily received a copy of this book from Netgalley. I could not put this book down!
Debbie Macomber has woven a beautiful story around a real tragedy. Annie is in desperate need to find her “happy place” after losing her family. She retreats to the seashore where memories of family vacations bring her a sense of peace. Finally she can come to grips with her new reality until she becomes involved in the events of the small seaside town. Like always Macomber puts her reader right in the middle of real life. The characters are true to life and the storylines are realistic. There are so many possible spinoff stories from this book that Macomber could easily do another Cedar Cove series. I highly recommend this book!