Stories of intricate family relationships and secrets are usually very interesting to me, but the pacing dragged so much at times that my attention frequently lagged. Overall, a pretty good story, with fairly complex personalities and an interesting setting. The male characters were the main weakness - the author mostly dwelled on the female characters, so the guys were mostly in place as two dimensional plot drivers.

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive. Angela Brazil's narration was serviceable, but her tendency to care-full-y e-nun-ci-ate her words was distracting. ( )

It was fun to read a book with a familiar, Cape Cod setting. The writing is lovely, and the characters are well developed. I just didn't find any of them loveable. The ending seemed rushed, and I was left unsatisfied that the skeletons stayed locked in the closet (trying to say something that isn't a spoiler). ( )

2.5 So. much. narration. This could have been half the length and would've been a more compelling book. It has some cool magic-y elements and girl power and superstitious Catholic practices (Our Lady of the Salt) kind of like Secret Life of Bees, but goes overboard on description and covering the length of time that the story spans. Except the last 2 chapters which fast-forward about 18 years. The Gilly sisters, Jo and Claire were raised on the salt marsh outside the town of Prospect on Cape Cod. The marsh is not kind to men/boys - a family curse of some kind, so it is just the girls and their hard-working, no-nonsense mother. The salt has some magical properties and the town seems to have a love/hate relationship as they believe their fate is tied to it. The nemesis to the Gilly girls is the Turner family, handsome Whit who is Jo's age and his spiteful mother, Ida. But there are secrets there. Eventually, over a lot of time (and narration) Claire and Whit marry after her true love Ethan becomes a priest. Whit believes he can finally own the marsh and dominate the town, but it doesn't work out that way. Instead Claire and Jo have a falling out and work against each other. All this history comes to light mostly through the lens of newcomers teenage Dee and her jerk of a father Cut. They open a diner in town and don't get any customers until they start serving Gilly salt. Dee is only 17 and needy and curious so gets a little snoopy about the Gilly sisters and all the town dynamics. She also gets involved with Whit which sets a whole other layer of story in motion. It's one of those saga books, but I felt like it didn't need to be. ( )

Two sisters could not be more different! Jo and Claire are more than a few years apart, they are as different as day and night. Jo is the older, mature, dark haired one. She has undertaken being a mini-mommy with her brother and sister as well as takes it upon herself to give it her all when helping their mother work their salt farm. Day in and day out. Learning the tricks of reading the weather and land.

Claire wants nothing to do with the salt farm, being poor and dirty. She has the ivory skin, and blazing read hair- just like her mother. She dreams about the day she will be able to escape and live a life of luxury where she has clean new clothing, and her hands are not blistered from having work to hope you have enough to food to put on the table.

No one really knows the truth about the salt farm and why or how it really can alter your life, the town just knows to accept it and they will have good luck and fortune. Rumor is the Gilly Girls are witches, and they are the ones who actually control things with the salt, but there is no proof of that rampant rumor.

As the girls grow older, love blossoms as it always does between teens and Claire, then gets her heart broken when the love of her life tells her he is going to be become a minister and he leaves soon. She is so upset that does the one thing that Jo always yells at her for, and this time there are consequences that cannot change the outcome of that match.

Claire runs off and marries a different, unexpected bachelor. By doing this, she commits the ultimate betrayal against her mother and sister, Jo. As the Gilly family has a history with the Turners and the whole town knows that the Turners have always been out to get their hands on the Gilly farm. Claire becomes a different person, and lives the life she always dreamed of, but it’s not as good as she thought and she does everything in her power to remove the salt from the town.

She wants every reminder of her homestead erased. Soon people are fearful of her, now being the Turner matron and does as she asks. They stop carrying the Gilly’s salt and just as they’ve believed things start going downhill. Their mother dies and then Jo is left to fend all on her own on the farm. How will she keep the place going, and bring in enough to sustain the payments, as Claire has gotten almost everyone to stop buying the salt.

Whit Turner isn’t who Claire thought he was, and she realizes that she made have made a grave mistake marrying him. She finds an earning in his car, and it is not hers. Before she has time, to do some sleuthing of her own, she finds out who this other woman is and just how much of a mess Whit has made. But an incident causes Claire to run back to her childhood home, and reconnect with Jo.

Can the two sisters mend their past, and bring the Gilly Salt farm back to life? Can Claire really redeem herself, with everything she has done in her life or have they cursed themselves with the salt? What about Jo, and the secret that she has harbored for years? The real reason the Turners and Gilly’s have hated each other.

This was a really good read, if you are wanting an easy family drama read. I really enjoyed the storyline, along with the few twists the author through in there. I am also going to look into her other two novels, as they also sound good ( )

This book was somewhat of a slow read. Jo's character is the most interesting, her history the most colorful, but I felt the book focuses a lot on Claire. I was hoping for a lot more growth and redemption from her, but that didn't happen. She tolerated Dee, so she could get her baby, and then tried to redeem her conscience by risking losing "her" son, by telling him the truth when the time is right.

It's also very focused on Whit, and his entanglement with the sisters, as well as his position in the town. He's a hollow character and a jerk, so his path in the story is no surprise. Overall, this was a pretty bland story, much like the unsalted food Claire needed so much. ( )