"16 Lighthouse Road" is the first book in Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove series and it focuses on the lives of several people living there. Cecelia and Ian Randall married when Cecelia became pregnant, but their baby died while Navy man Ian was at sea. Now they want to divorce because Cecelia can't forgive Ian for not being there when she needed him the most. Judge Olivia Lockhart catches newspaper editor Jack Griffin's attention when she is reluctant to grant the divorce until the Randall's try to work things out. Olivia is attracted to Jack, but is concerned about her daughter Justine who is dating a much older man. Olivia's friend Grace Sherman is having problems with her husband Dan - after thirty-five years of marriage he has walked out and disappeared without any explanation. Finally, there is Olivia's mother, Charlotte Jefferson, who befriended an elderly man shortly before he died and is trying to track down his family to return the few possessions he left behind.

I really enjoyed "16 Lighthouse Road" and bought the rest of the books in the series as soon as I finished reading it. Debbie Macomber's writing can be awkward at times and the book often sounds like a soap opera. She can be melodramatic to a fault, saying one character will never be a grandfather because his son is sterile - has she never heard of adoption? But despite her writing flaws, Macomber is a great storyteller and she creates characters that readers will care about. The book doesn't focus on any one character but tells each character's story equally. Some of the stories, such as Ian and Cecelia's come to a close, but others, such as Grace and Dan's are left open. This can be frustrating and feel like a cheat to readers who want everything tied up neatly at the end, but Macomber had me caring enough about the characters to make me want to read the other books in the series to find out what happens to them. That's the mark of a truly gifted storyteller.

"16 Lighthouse Road" is a well-done soap opera in book form. ( )

Good book. I like how it follows the lives of several people in the community. Will read others in the series. ( )

The first book in the Cedar Cove series about a small town in Washington state. This book revolves around a young couple (Cecilia and Ian), after losing their infant daughter, their marriage starts to crumble. The judge (Olivia) won't allow the divorce to happen as easily as they would like and this is their story of finding the true core to their relationship. ( )

This is the second Macomber book I’ve read and I enjoyed it rather more than the first. 16 Lighthouse Road is the first of the ‘Cedar Cove’ series and chronicles a year in the life of Olivia and her friends and family. I found the beginning of the book a bit tedious – there was a lot of telling and not so much showing – but I soon found myself so enchanted with Ms Macomber’s skilful characterisation and nimble plotting that the pages flew by. I’m already looking forward to the next instalment. ( )

Cecelia Randall, grieving from the death of her daughter, decides to divorce her husband, Ian, who was unable to be with her when the baby was born, lived, or died because of his Navy obligations. This is one of several story threads that run through 16 Lighthouse Road, which also follows the stories of other Cedar Cove residents, including divorced judge Olivia, and her friend Grace, over the course of several months.

I'm not really sure why I pushed through to finish this book, since it just wasn't working for me. I had trouble following all the different characters - while I could keep track of them all, the story shifts made it hard for me to care about one or the other because when I was getting close, the story moved again. Furthermore, these shifts meant that sometimes changes in a character that happened over weeks were summarized in a paragraph instead of shown through changes in attitude or behavior. A story I may have enjoyed more in a different mood. ( )