What New Beginnings Are Made Of (Star Gazer Inn of Corpus Christi Bay #1) by Debra Clopton

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Clean Romance, Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction
Content: Clean

 

New beginnings take courage…
She’s a fifty-five-year-old widow feeling like she’s lost herself.
On a whim of her aching heart, Alice McIntyre buys the Star Gazer Inn and is looking for a fresh start…something to put a spark back into her life.

But first she has to tell her four sons, who have problems of their own but have smothered her with their protective instincts. She’s lived on the huge South Texas ranch just outside of Corpus Christi since their father carried her over the threshold. She’s raised them on the massive McIntyre Ranch—one of the largest, wealthiest in Texas. It’s been her home and theirs. Will they understand that it’s time for her to leave? Time for her to move on?

Jackson McIntyre is shocked by his mother’s announcement. Guilt-ridden in the aftermath of his father’s accident, Jackson is determined to do whatever it takes to help his mother find her way to move forward. But this new idea of hers has him reeling.

Nina lives next door to the inn and is living a quiet life, keeping a low profile. She has her reasons. Will the opening of the inn and her new neighbors, especially the oldest son of the new innkeeper, tempt her to step back into the light and out of the shadows of her past?

Lisa, Alice’s best friend and recent divorcee, has been traveling the world since the breakup that left her shaken and feeling just as lost as Alice. A brilliant cook with a flair for entertaining, she loves Alice’s idea and joins her to open the inn. But Lisa has her own secrets.

Can these two friends, and their new neighbor Nina, find fresh starts as they ready the Star Gazer Inn for its new beginning?

Will Nina find the courage to take one more chance on love with her new friend’s son?

Three women find friendship and courage on the shores of Corpus Christi Bay. Come visit the Star Gazer Inn, with a side trip to the McIntyre Ranch, as Alice finds her way between two worlds.

This new series follows Alice, her sons, and her friends—and new loves—on the South Texas coast with its sparkling topaz water.

You’ll want to dip your toes in and stay awhile.

Heartfelt women's fiction: faith, family, love.

 

Recently there was a big giveaway for a bunch of clean romance novels through Feel Good Fiction, author Alana Johnson's website. I downloaded all of them with the intention of sifting through them later to pick out the ones that caught my interest. It was paired with a series of three live videos that the authors participated in, introducing themselves and talking about their books on Alana Johnson's Youtube channel. I watched these videos before I picked out what books I wanted to read, and the author of this book was one that stood out to me. I enjoyed her story of how this book came to be and how some of it mirrored her real life story. It seemed she had put her heart into this book and it made me want to read it, so I added it to my pick it for me list this month, and it ended up being the book my friend Jenny picked for me to read.

The story started out with us meeting Alice, a recent widow. One thing I think the author did really well was relate to us how much grief Alice felt, and how hard is was to move forward in her life without her husband. This really resonated with me because my dad passed away about three years ago, leaving my mom, and I saw her grief. It was a daily thing for over a year. It's still there, and always will be, but it did get easier. At the beginning of this book Alice has taken a big step towards moving forward by doing something unexpected. 

I found it interesting the way the author showed that this was a part of Alice that was always there. She had just left this thing behind when she got married and moved and wasn't able to pursue it until now. It's mentioned that her husband was a bigger than life personality who seemed to know what he liked and it reminded me of another widow I know who was married to a man similar to that. They always had the things he picked out and did the things he wanted to do. In this book Alice seemed happy to be swept up into her husband's life and doesn't seem to resent that at all because she wanted it, but I wonder if maybe a part of her got left out somewhere, that shouldn't have been.

Alice's four sons, especially Jackson, play a part in this book. At first I found myself annoyed with them over their overprotective natures, but they loosened up pretty quickly and I warmed up to them. I get why they were overprotective of their mom. She had lost her husband and was vulnerable emotionally, so I couldn't really hold it against them. I liked that Alice was going to do what she wanted to do despite what her sons thought. Out of the four sons, I ended up liking Jackson the most, but he's the one we get to know the most in this book. It will be interesting to get to know the others more in the rest of the series.

Going into this I was expecting the main romance to be about Alice, but her romance was actually a slower burn on the side that looks like it will be an ongoing thread in the series. I didn't mind this since she just lost her husband less than two years ago. I also really liked getting to know Seth and am looking forward to reading more about him. The main romance ends up being between two other people, and for the most part I liked it, especially the slow build up of trust that happened with that story line.

Overall, this was a good book with characters that were easy to like, and I enjoyed the beach setting. Out of all the characters, I liked Alice, Lisa, and Nina the most. I enjoyed the friendship the three of them shared. I would have loved to have gotten more details of their time spent together as friends chatting, shopping, and helping each other through the difficulties in their lives. More heartwarming interactions and deep conversation would have made this even better. I feel like that was mostly told and not actually shown as much as it could have been, and the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. I hope that happens in the other books.

In some ways this book reminded me a bit of Cedar Cove by Debbie Macomber, with the multiple points of view in the small town, and the open ended stories for some of the characters, only this was better written. That being said, there were still some awkwardly worded sentences in this book, characters that could have been more fleshed out, and most everything was too predictable but I'm interested in continuing this series. I was looking for an easy quick escape type read and this did fit that description. I really want to know how things end up for Lisa and how the slow burn romance develops for Alice.