The View from Coral Cove by Amy Clipston

  

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Romance, Contemporary Romance
Content: Clean

When a jilted romance novelist escapes to a small beach town, the last thing she expected to find was the start of an even better love story.

In the wake of a broken engagement and the death of her last surviving family member, romance novelist Maya Reynolds moves to the haven of Coral Cove, North Carolina, to take over her great-aunt’s toy store. Some of her grief is immediately eased by imaginative eight-year-old Ashlyn Tanner, who talks her into adopting a kitten and inspires Maya to create a princess tea-party room in the store.

Ashlyn’s dad, local veterinarian Brody Tanner, is quickly smitten by the newest resident of his hometown. As a single parent, he sacrifices a lot in order to give Ashlyn the world, so a romantic entanglement with Maya is not a distraction he is looking for.

As the three develop a deepening bond in the seaside town where Maya experienced some of her happiest childhood memories, clouds cast a shadow over Maya’s hope for the future: an impossible deadline looms over her next novel, a long-held secret by her late mother about Maya’s absent father comes to light, and Brody’s resolve to avoid romance seems unbreakable.

But together, they just might discover that sometimes happy endings happen outside the pages of Maya’s novels too.

 

This is the first Amy Clipston book I've read. I've been wanting to try one of her books, especially since she's a local author to me. I always enjoy it when a book has places in it that I'm familiar with, and since the author is local there was an abundance of that. 

I liked the characters Maya, Brody, and Ashlyn, and I liked the side story of Maya finding her dad. However, the writing was simplistic and the characters spoke a bit too formal. In particular, I thought the 8 year old in the book spoke too formal for an 8 year old. I also didn't feel like there was enough depth to the story. There was too much telling and not enough showing. I want to be able to feel what the characters are feeling through the author's descriptions and I didn't get much of that. 

I was set to give this 3 stars until the book went stupid. Minor spoiler here- If Maya's ex Kyle coming back had been left out I probably would have given it three stars, but I just couldn't believe Maya's actions after this point. Brody's reaction to Maya at one point was also unbelievable considering how much she had proven herself to him.

Although this book was a disappointment for me, I do plan on trying another one of this author's books.