Jessie NewtonCritiques

The Lighthouse Five Island Cove, Book 1 by Jessie Newton
This story starts out with the death of one of the group. There are five women who grew up and met and have a pact to come every summer to the islands where they can reconnect with one another.
The death brings them all together. The lives of the women are so varied, single, married with kids, married no kids, etc. their jobs are just as varied. Like the different ages and the problems they go through. People have a lot of secrets from the past and also so much drama.
I did not like being thrown into the mix of things. didn't feel like I belonged there. so confusing as who was who. I think a book of each of them would be in order to keep them all straight then merge the characters in this book.
End comes and there is an excerpt of the next in the series.
Received this review copy from the author and this is my honest opinion.

First installment in the Sail Away series. This book highlights the beginning chapter of each of the books, a total of Download is free! You can get a feel of each story and the individual writer's style. Each book will take you to a different beautiful location! Cruise ships should market these books! Perfect book if you are looking for a light read after something heavy and dark.

The Sound of the Sea by Jessie Newton
A Five Island Cove novel. Contemporary romance. Older couple. Closed door. Part of the Sail Away series by multiple authors.
Jennifer Golden decides to take a single cruise over the Christmas holiday. She plans to call her children and hopefully apologize and reconnect with them. The cruise will give her a chance to get some distance and make decisions. As she’s ready to board the ship, she encounters Blanche Gibb, her college roommate. Blanche and her brother Mitchell, will be on the cruise as well which makes Jennifer happy. They will be able to spend some time together and reconnect. The little zing she gets when with Mitchell is a nice little bonus for Jennifer.

An emotional story as Jennifer reconnects with her daughter and son as she learns to be less critical and more supportive. She spends time with Mitchell and they grow close as well.
Zero heat here. But tears as mother, daughter and son deal with hurt feelings from the past.
It’s a beautiful story with focus on family later in life.

Kristen’s husband Joel has died. Now, to support the widow, Robin is calling her four best friends back to the island. But Joel is not the man most people believe him to be. As the friends and widow go through the copious papers and writings that Joel left behind, they uncover secrets, hurtful things that Joel has done. It is a story of friendships that endure, but is filled with too much angst. Tears flow like Niagara Falls. The story drags some, and the characters are not well developed, but as the series goes on with several books, their stories and personalities will likely become clearer. Several of the friends are not content or happy with their lives, and everyone is dealing with stress. Not a beach romance read by any stretch of the imagination, and any HEAs will have to wait for another installment.

Though Christmas is in the title, the holiday didn’t impact the story, but a tsunami did. This is story about strong female characters and the friendships they maintain. This is the first book in the series I have read, and I believe I might have liked the book better had I known the back-stories of the many characters. That being said, several of the reviews on this book indicate that it is not as well written as the previous books in the series. The anticipation of the tsunami and dealing with its aftermath was quite interesting, more so than some of the other aspects of the novel. As the story jumped around so much, it was hard to remember who said and did what, but by the end of the story, it really didn’t matter.