Folly Cove by Holly Robinson

Folly Cove.  Holly Robinson.  Penguin Publishing. October 2016. 400 pp. ISBN#: 978110199534.  

Folly Cove Inn, its owner Sarah Bradford, and her daughters, Laura, Anne and Elly, are famous in the Rockport, Massachusetts area and throughout the country.  The singular jazz singing, elegant meals, pristinely beautiful grounds, and the hosts’ friendliness to guests make the Inn a favorite vacation spot as well as a site for weddings and celebrations galore.  At one time, the three sisters were as close as possible, a support for each other against the persistent demands for perfection from their mother.  But now through a series of unexpected events, secrets galore are about to come out, facts and dreams that will shatter or unite their relationships forever!

Anne is the first to come home from her idyllic love and beach life far from Rockport.  Her perfect life has come undone, her love has left and she arrives home to shock Sarah with a baby girl.  She soon moves into a nearby cottage on the grounds as her mother doesn’t want a child’s noise to disturb the guests; she never realizes her coldness to her granddaughter just adds more hurt to Anne’s already dispirited mood.  But Anne’s feisty enough to fight for her daughter and agrees to help out at the inn to make money to support her daughter.

Laura is the daughter who stayed at home, married and had a child.  But something is unraveling in her marriage and she has no idea what it is.  She and Anne hate each other over a supposed betrayal that happened years earlier.  The truth of that terrible time will be clarified in time but not before words and even a physical attack brings all the venom to the surface. 

Elly is a talented singer who just couldn’t make in the music business but developed other skills.  Her return home is guided by her need to recoup and see if she should move in a different direction.  She’s the beauty of the family which causes some resentment but her genial mood makes everyone around her laugh, smile and speak honestly about whatever is needed at the moment.

All of these ladies will gradually meet men secretly and in the open that will force them to face who they are individually and as a family. Those talks that follow are stunning. Even Sarah is about to undergo a transformation, albeit forced in one sense.

This is a family story that is so very, very real.  It has so many moments of different emotional ranges concerning dreams, betrayal and loyalty, sympathy, truth-telling, and a bond that is stronger than any one or series of events can destroy. 

This reviewer loved this novel and highly recommends it as a careful, talented work of engaging contemporary fiction! Great story and characters every reader can identify with in some way or ways!

Chance Harbor by Holly Robinson

Chance Harbor.  Holly Robinson. Penguin Group (USA). October 215. 448 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451471505.

Catherine and Zoe, two sisters who look like each other but couldn’t be more different, are now separated. Zoe, the rebel in the family who did drugs, dropped out of school and more, ran away, leaving her daughter Willow with Catherine and Russell.  The latter seemed like the proverbially successful, married couple but are now separate as well, Russell having sired a father by his high school student Noel.  Catherine is having a hard time coping with it all, especially in light of the fact that her father has recently passed away and her mother, Eve, has decided to sell the family summer home, Chance Harbor, on Prince Edward Island.  Sounds like a course in Family Dysfunction 101.  The difference herein is how does each character deal with the gradual revelations that initially stun all of them and what kind of new relationships develop as the family life evolves?

Numerous descriptions of beautiful Chance Harbor will engage every reader, a place where it’s safe to relax and let nature heal, if possible, what needs to be let go and what needs to be grabbed and dealt with.  It’s the perfect combination of seashore and rugged living!  Near to Catherine’s home are wooded and mountainous areas where hiking and fresh air also serve to relax and fully engage with the present moment! The environment clearly parallels the family’s turbulent transformation that is patiently and poignantly described.

As the story evolves, strong feelings are verbalized and secrets are revealed, especially with the undoing of Catherine and Russell’s marriage, the reappearance of Zoe who is now clean, repentant and willing to try to undo the damage she left behind years ago.  New romances will emerge, one’s that respect the past and serve to accept a different kind of future.  Willow is a young woman who has her own moments of wisdom and mistakes, and she is able to demonstrate how one opens up to see something other than stereotypical patterns which enables Catherine and even her grandmother Eve to realize the past need not be repeated.

Chance Harbor is a lovely novel with some very complex interactions that seem rather edgy but which are transformed at just the right moment to scenes that keep the reader fully engaged.  The reader finds that he or she wants to know how the relationships of mother-daughter, father-daughter, sisters, and lovers will grow or terminate.  Very carefully crafted story about love that endures the worst that life can throw, stays solid where it should and leaves behind the dross! Highly recommended contemporary fiction!

Haven Lake by Holly Robinson

Haven Lake.  Holly Robinson. Penguin Group (USA). April 2015. 464 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451471499.

Sydney Bishop is a successful child psychologist who finds herself in the oddest of conundrums. Newly returned to the area many hours from her hometown after a series of family tragedies, she is engaged to a renowned surgeon who gives his all to his job but seems remote from his teenage son, Dylan.  Hannah’s in a difficult position, trying to be friendly to Dylan as a future stepmother and not expecting to exert parental discipline.  Unknown to Sydney, Dylan is angry and confused about a loss he has recently undergone and feels no one at home can truly understand what he’s going through.  So he packs up and decides to head elsewhere where he can start anew and learn a computer profession in order to get a job and support himself.  He thinks he’s an independent soul but has no idea of the difficult journey he is about to begin.

Dylan winds up at Sydney’s mother’s home in Haven Lake where he reluctantly agrees to stay a few days.  Hannah is not your typical mother and allows Dylan space to make his own decisions, not realizing how complex it will all get when his mother arrives.  In the midst of all the tension with her mother and Dylan, the secrets and feelings about the deaths in their family are gradually revealed, sometimes with harshness and sometimes with heartbreaking gentleness and sorrow.

Holly Robinson depicts family life with all of its unpredictability and tension-riddled moments with accuracy and sensitivity.  No stereotypical characters reside in her story and misunderstandings galore fill these pages, as well as the words said with powerful emotional and mental ramifications.  Secrets not only protect some characters but also initially keep a dysfunctional family from being torn apart, at least temporarily.

Forgiveness is never easy and the reader will be waiting for a satisfactory end but be quite surprised by the way it all evolves and concludes.

Very nicely done, Holly Robinson!

Beach Plum Island by Holly Robinson

Beach Plum Island.  Holly Robinson. Penguin Group (USA). April 2014. 400 pp.  ISBN#: 9780451241023.

Ava, Elaine, and Gigi are grieving the death of their father in different ways.  Ava and Elaine are sisters from their father’s first marriage and Gigi from his second marriage.  Elaine lives each day as a successful business woman but at night trolls clubs and bars for drinks and a one-night stand, the latter the wildness that alone offers her consolation.  For she deeply resents that her father left their mother, causing the latter’s eventual mental and emotional descent into drink and then death.  Ava loves Elaine but seems powerless to offer any comfort and peace.  Ava instead buries herself in her art teacher work, her pottery business and raising her two teenage sons. That’s all about to change when she and Gigi meet weeks after the funeral!

Gigi is a young, teenage girl who dies her hair different colors and does pretty much what she wants as her own mother is so devastated by the loss of her husband she is oblivious to Gigi.  Mercifully, Gigi meets Ava and change begins.  Gigi meets Ava’s sons and it turns out they blend very, very well together as Gigi has a phenomenal singing voice.  Ava knows exactly what to say and what not to say, so Gigi learns to trust someone who really cares for her as a real sister would and respects her likes and dislikes.

To say more would be a spoiler, but suffice to say that Ava and Gigi decide to act on their father’s last words.  They discover they had a brother who was born with a physical handicap under mysterious circumstances that no one will discuss; the sisters decide to attempt to find him.  The quest is both arduous and comforting in a strange but beautiful way!

Meanwhile, Ava and Elaine separately meet men who will treat them respectfully as adults, accepting their grief but not treating them like fragile pots that will break.  They also are both attractive for their honesty, spoken with just enough firmness to elicit growth and without making these women hurt more than they already do. Add in some genuinely charming, fired-up romance!

Beach Plum Island is a perfect read for this springtime and upcoming summer.  The author is quite talented in the manner in which she has depicted wounded but capable women who need to grieve but also need to move beyond the poignant moments of their past history.  Sensitivity clearly enables every character in this novel to grow, to expose grievous secrets and to create new life that erodes the tension too long lying just below the surface.  Evolution yields good experiences for both main and minor characters.  Lovely, powerful story that is well-crafted – great read, Holly Robinson!