It took me a little to get into the book, by by the end I couldn't put it down! The last half of the book had me on the edge of my seat and shouting "Oh my gosh!". Drue was a relatable heroine even though she was not your typical heroine. Definitely reccomend!

Sunset Beach is a little bit mystery, little bit romance, great combination for an all day beach read. I love all of Mary Kay Andrews books and this one did not disappoint. Just make sure you have a lot of free time before you pick this one up because it will be hard to put it down!

Another great beach read by Mary Kay Andrews. I loved her last book THE HIGH TIDE CLUB. Expect for two small issues (I will explain) I loved this one also.

Drue Campbell’s mother has just died and at the funeral Drue’s father suddenly shows up. Drue has had no contact with him over the past 20 years. Drue has no job and has recently injured her knee in a kiteboarding accident. Brice Campbell is a personal injury attorney and gives Drue a job at his agency. He also turns over the keys to the cottage on Sunset Beach that her grandparents owned. Now that her mother is dead, the cottage belongs to Drue.

Drue’s job consists of fielding calls from people looking for easy money. But when she meets little Aliyah Mayes and her grandmother Yvonne Howington, Drue is haunted by their story. Aliyah’s mother was murdered at the hotel where she worked as a housekeeper. Brice Campbell was Yvonne’s attorney but since Jazmin Mayes was supposedly “on the clock” when she died the case was closed as a workmen comp issue which has a cap to how much the defendant can get. Yvonne is left struggling with medical bills for Aliyah’s respiratory illness.

Thus Drue begins her own investigation into what happened to Jazmin. Drue undercovers more than she ever imagined - possible corruption within her own father’s firm, a missing person’s case, and threats to her own life. And what would a beach story be without some romance.

SUNSET BEACH is a page-turner filled with humor, charm, and compelling characters.

There were two minor issues that prevented me from giving the book a five star rating. Hopefully it won’t matter much to most people but it continued to bother me. 1) Drue is 36 years old but behaves and is treated more like she were 26. She is even referred to at one point as a juvenile. I have never heard of a juvenile 36-year-old. 2) Jazmin is a housekeeper at a very busy resort. No one blinked an eye at her taking 2 ½ hours to clean a room. That does work for me. But I still really enjoyed the book.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.

This was my first Mary Kay Andrews book and I'll certainly be reading more of her work. I love the cover of the book which is really misleading because things are much darker in the book than the cover conveys. At the same time, we get to enjoy the beach and a worn out beach house that gets to come alive again as you read the book. In some ways I think the beach house coming alive and the life of Drue, the main character, mirror each other.

Drue took some getting used to for me but mostly that was because I needed to understand her background and what had happened in her past, to make her seem so down on just about everything in her life. After learning that she'd been in an accident that ended her involvement of her passion, kite boarding, we also find out that her mother had recently died and Drue's relationship with her live in boyfriend was over, and in the beginning of the book she gets fired from her job as a waitress. With no reason to stay where she was, Drue heads to St. Petersburg to work for her estranged father's ambulance chasing law office., screening calls from potential clients.

I really enjoyed the characters in the book because even minor characters seemed to be individuals and Drue's relationship with the various people in the book has the potential to change as she gets to know the people and they get to know her. Drue went from seeming like a grumpy, depressing, too down on her luck character, to someone I could see did care about others and wanted to make a difference in her life and the lives of others.

Drue throws herself into researching and investigating an almost forty year old missing person case and also a two year old murder. Most of what she does has to be done on the sly since her dad might have been involved in the missing person case and her dad's firm represented the family of the murder victim, represented badly, as far as Drue is concerned. Drue wants to find out what happened to the missing person and she wants to right the many wrongs in the case of the murder victim and her family. The story has two timelines, as we go back in forth from the present to almost 40 years ago, when Drue's then police officer dad and his partner, interact with the missing woman, before her disappearance.

I enjoyed the multi faceted characters and the mysteries the story presents. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

I enjoyed reading this book. It was an easy breezy read. A perfect beach read. Mary Kay Andrews never fails to entertain her readers.

I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Net Galley for my honest review.
Expecting a light hearted beach read, I was pleasantly surprised that Mary Kay Andrews had included some mystery to this story.
Thirty-six year old Drue has been drifting through life. Her first love is kiteboarding, but she has hurt her knee, her mother has recently died and she was just fired from her job. Then in walks her estranged father who offers her a job in his personal injury law firm and tells her that she has inherited her grandparents old beach house. With no where else to go, Drue packs up her meager belongings and moves to the beach house and accepts her father’s offer.
As she begins to learn the business, she becomes involved in two murder cases, one decades old and another although closed, doesn’t sit well with her. This is more than just a “beach read. “This is a “great” beach read with family drama, mystery and a little romance.

This is my second Mary Kay Andrews novel and it is GOOD! Mix family drama with two mysteries-solving, add a little romance and a lot of sun and sand, and you got yourself an awesome summer read.

I must admit that I didn't guess at all everything that happens in the book and I suspected the wrong persons!

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press for the early copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I was expecting a beach read and what I got was 3 mysteries bundled in one with twisting plots that I did not see coming! I am being nit picky, but it did bother me that Drue who has no police or investigative experience was digging around in an open cold case. It wasn’t really feasible that this would happen and then I reminded myself this is the land of fiction and just enjoy it, which I did. Thank you Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. I would recommend this to other readers and fan of Mary Kay Andrews.

I love Mary Kay Andrews beach reads and this one does not disappoint. If you love her books, you have to read this one!

Drue was 36 and having to rebuild her life after the loss of her Mother and an injury ending her kiteboarding passion. She reconnects with her Dad who hasn’t been in her life in years. Then, the fun begins.

This book had two mystery’s that twisted and turned and a love interest that kept me interested to the end. I loved the characters so much I hope this begins a series like the Savannah series.

I was thrilled for the opportunity from Net Galley to read an advance digital copy of Sunset Beach, from an author I've followed since she was a member of our Atlanta Sisters in Crime chapter, writing two mystery series under her real name. Sunset Beach is a cross between her mystery-genre roots and the beach read/humorous women's fiction Mary Kay Andrews is now known for.
The protagonist, Drue Campbell, just lost her mother and her job, and an injury cut short her participation in kiteboarding, her sport of passion.
When her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury lawyer, offers her a job on the other side of the state, Drue has nothing left to lose. The pot is sweetened when she learns she has inherited an old beach house once owned by her grandparents. It's a fixer-upper, but it has good bones and a great location.
The job, an intake clerk answering the "Justice Line," leaves a lot to be desired. Especially when Drue learns that the office manager, Wendy, her father's new wife, is her old frenemy from high school.
Fellow phone reps preppy Jason (for whom Drue fights an antagonistic attraction) and nerdy Ben help her learn the ropes and cope with her new reality.
In the course of her job and cleaning out the attic in her new home, Drue becomes involved in two mysteries. One is the unsolved murder of a young mother who was supposedly on duty at a nearby motel at the time of her death; hence the firm's efforts to sue the motel for wrongful death were limited to what they could collect under worker's compensation laws.
Another is a cold case: the 20-year-old disappearance of a woman with ties to both Drue's father and his lead investigator, a former police officer connected to the case.
Drue is an engaging heroine, and it was satisfying to watch her growth as she finds her new calling in life.

Sunset beach was a good read with interesting characters. Some humor, but not as much as some of Andrews’s other books. I enjoyed the relationship between father and daughter and how it changed over the course of the book.

After being a little disappointed with The High Tide Club last year, I was a little nervous about what to expect from Sunset Beach, but I went ahead and requested a copy from the publisher anyway and I'm so glad I did!

Sunset Beach is classic Andrews - fun, fast-paced and full of heart. And as with almost every Mary Kay Andrews book I've ever read, as soon as I finished reading it I was ready to start renovating and redecorating my house.

If you haven't yet had the pleasure of reading anything by Mary Kay Andrews, this is a good book tot start with. It tells the story of Drue Campbell and her mess of a life. She's moved to St. Petersburg, FL to work in her daddy's law office where she has to contend with her former best friend/new stepmother AND solve a decade's-old mystery.

As always, the characters are over the top, yet believable and the setting is a character of its own. This is my top recommendation for a poolside/beach read for summer 2019.

Disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

A good beach read with the right mixture of romance and mystery. Drue finds herself without a job, without a home, after the loss of her mom. When her estranged Dad, Brice, offers her a job, she jumps to it, after learning she inherited an old beach cottage. Finding an old police file while also looking into one of her Dad’s old cases, puts Drue right in the thick of 2 murder investigations. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this sure to be summer hit.

Drue Campbell's life is having a hard time of late - her mother has just passed away, her car won't start, she's lost her crappy waitressing job, and a sporting accident has left her injured. When her estranged father shows up to her mother's funeral and offers Drue a job at his ambulance-chasing law firm and the keys to her inheritance - a run down cottage in Sunset Beach that belonged to her grandparents, she packs up her few belongings and moves across the state. On her first day at her new job, she meets the office manager - her new stepmother Wendy, also known as her eighth grade frenemy.

As Drue settles in to her job taking calls at the law firm, she comes across a former client of her father's and an unsolved murder surrounding it. Despite everyone's objections, Drue plays detective and comes across some surprising finds about the case, but also about herself and her family.

The covers and descriptions of Mary Kay Andrews' books are always deceiving. You think they are going to be light beach reads, but there ends up being a surprise mystery mixed in. This one was a little lighter on the mystery side, but it was still a good read. It wrapped up a little too neatly at the end for my taste, but I would definitely recommend this as a fun summer read.

I LOVED The High Tide Club last summer and was very excited for this. I didn't anticipate the law aspect, but I didn't mind it. If you have a beach vacation coming up, this Mary Kay Andrews book, as always, will be a welcome companion.

Sunset Beach is a great read, with a beach cottage for Drue to inherit with its attic full of very interesting stuff for Drue to snoop through. And a couple of mysteries that Drue is just the gal to solve. And before I forget to mention two or three guys for Drue to meet, oh yes this is so much more than just a beach story, it kept me entertained from cover to cover.

With a name and cover like this book, you think you would be getting a sappy romance, when in actuality you're getting an entertaining mystery/family drama. This is an enjoyable read from beginning to end and has a great strong female lead.

Mary Kay Andrews never fails to blow me away! Her wit, charm, and way with words are not only endearing but entertaining as well. Reading one of her books feels like a sit-down at your favorite coffee shop with a childhood friend. Through this story, we meet Drue, who has had her fair share of disappointments in heartache in her life. Through the adventure she travels in our novel, she not only tackles new interests and overcomes fears, but has a beautiful journey as well. This is an Andrews novel perfect for any poolside afternoon or lazy beach day. It is not to be missed!

Drue Campbell’s life is adrift. Out of a job and down on her luck, life doesn’t seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother’s funeral after a twenty-year absence. Worse, he’s remarried—to Drue’s eighth grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they’re offering her a job.

It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritance—her grandparents’ beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach, a charming but storm-damaged eyesore now surrounded by waterfront McMansions.

With no other prospects, Drue begrudgingly joins the firm, spending her days screening out the grifters whose phone calls flood the law office. Working with Wendy is no picnic either. But when a suspicious death at an exclusive beach resort nearby exposes possible corruption at her father’s firm, she goes from unwilling cubicle rat to unwitting investigator, and is drawn into a case that may—or may not—involve her father. With an office romance building, a decades-old missing persons case re-opened, and a cottage in rehab, one thing is for sure at Sunset Beach: there’s a storm on the horizon.



My Thoughts: Sunset Beach takes the reader right into the setting, amongst a cast of interesting characters. Drue was my favorite, and her father’s wife Wendy was someone I loved to hate. The two had been friends as children, and then were not. Now, as her father’s newest wife, she is also the office manager, in a position to order Drue around with big yellow “SEE ME” post-it notes showing up frequently.

Coworkers Jonah and Ben brought unexpected flavor, especially as the twists in the story took us behind the scenes in some legal cases, with Drue following the clues to solving a murder.

An alternating timeline from the 70s revealed secrets from the past, and how the present day characters were connected to a mysterious disappearance.

I also loved seeing Drue’s joy at fixing up her grandparents’ old cottage, which she had inherited. Lovely memories brought out the sense of family and sentimental moments.

I liked how the story swept back and forth in time, culminating in some unexpected answers to some piercing questions. I couldn’t wait to keep turning the pages of this great 5 star read full of family, friends, loss, and mysteries.***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley.

When Drue suffers an injury and can no longer kite board after another sudden loss she's forced to move cities and work for her estranged father at his law firm who is now married to a former friend of hers. While she doesn't immediately warm up to the situation with her new step-mother as her office manager she does find her groove fairly quickly when she encounters a client who she feels like was not handled properly. As she begins to dig around in the case she makes many discoveries and begins working with the detectives but someone really doesn't like her sniffing around.
This had a little bit of everything from heartbreak, mystery, and humor.