The Hideaway by Lauren Denton

Reviewed by Martha Artyomenko

Book Description

When her grandmother’s will wrenches Sara back home from New Orleans, she learns more about Margaret Van Buren in the wake of her death than she ever did in life.

After her last remaining family member dies, Sara Jenkins goes home to The Hideaway, her grandmother Mags’s ramshackle B&B in Sweet Bay, Alabama. She intends to quickly tie up loose ends then return to her busy life and thriving antique shop in New Orleans. Instead, she learns Mags has willed her The Hideaway and charged her with renovating it—no small task considering Mags’s best friends, a motley crew of senior citizens, still live there.

Amid Sheetrock dust, old memories, and a charming contractor, she discovers that slipping back into life at The Hideaway is easier than she expected.

When an opportunistic land developer threatens to seize The Hideaway, Sara is forced to make a choice—stay in Sweet Bay and fight for the house and the people she’s grown to love or leave again and return to her successful but solitary life in New Orleans.

My Review:

I feel like it is more are that I really can’t put books down, but this was one of them. I kept falling back into the story. I loved her grandmother’s story. It really was something I could relate to, especially her marriage situation.

This is not a typical “Christian fiction” story. There is a very minute romantic thread of a sort, but that is totally not the focus of the book.  Instead, “happily ever after” does not happen for some of the characters. It is more real life and reality based. However, this does not take away from this story.  It kind of reminded me of “Cedar Cove” TV series as I read, with more depth to it.

I found myself wishing for more as I read, and trying to drag out the story, but in the end, I was satisfied and happy. I would recommend this book to those that want to see inside how a woman might have dealt with abuse in her marriage in a very non-descriptive way, in that time period. It does have the insinuation of sex, outside of marriage, but without detail.

You will be transported to the beach, want to own a B&B or take in older couples when you read this.