I picked up this book after reading The Shop on Blossom Street, to see if I just really liked the author or just that series. It really wasn't my type of book. While there were somewhat interesting plots, I had a really hard time keeping track of the characters and their involvement in the stories. Most of the stories reminded me of Lifetime movies and soap operas. I can handle that type of story if there's something else keeping me involved, but this didn't really have that for me. I don't plan on reading the rest of this series. ( )

second in the cedar cove series. This time the primary character is Grace - deserted by her husband - and how she's getting her life back together. Along with continuations of Grace's adult children, Kelly and MaryEllen; and her best friend, judge Olivia and the new man in her life - Jack. ( )

3.5 stars

A little of everything cozy. Good series! ( )

I thought about giving this one 4 stars, but the mess with Zack and Rosie made me drop it one. Sorry, bickering couples are not my favorite thing to read about in romance novels. Another reason why I gave this one 3 stars, is that this one reads a bit like filler since you don't find out the resolution with a lot of things in this one until book #3, "311 Pelican Court".

One thing you can say about these books is that there is not a lack of characters. In "204 Rosewood Lane" we turn to Grace Sherman and her family. Grace's husband Dan has been missing for 6 months and she finally decides to go through with divorcing him. She has her two daughters, Maryellen and Kelly to lean on. Also she has a potential love interest too.

The good:

I liked seeing Grace become more sure of herself. From what we read about in book number one and here, she hasn't had a happy marriage. She also has managed to not shake the life out of her daughter Kelly who acts like a brat and her histrionics since her father has gone missing made me tired.

Macomber does a good job with juggling multiple people. Besides Grace, we have her daughter Maryellen as the focus, her relationship with a man named Jon, Olivia, Jack, and Olivia's ex husband Stan, Olivia's daughter Justine and Seth, along with Jack's son Eric, and Rosie and Zach Cox with their two kids. As I said in one of my other reviews, Macomber always introduces the couple who will be the focus in the next book in the preceding one. This time it's going to be Rosie and Zach. Problem was that the whole book felt weighted down with their acrimony.

Cedar Cove always feels lively and interesting and it feels like a real life place you can visit.

The bad:

I thought the nonsense between Olivia and Jack dealing with her ex and his son was boring to read about. Just have a conversation and stop playing games. They are both in their early 50s and I didn't have any patience with it at all.

Maryellen and Jon, I could not get over Maryellen and what she decides to keep a secret. Those that know me remember that my two most loathed romance plot lines are love triangles and secret babies. So guess which one this is.

Rosie and Zach, good grief. I didn't know who I wanted to shake more.



Rosie was acting like a martyr, but Zach acted like a throwback to the 1950s expecting a home cooked meal ready for him every night. Neither one of them really respected the duties the other one had during the day. And neither of them had any sense since they didn't seem to give their two kids chores which would help keep down the animosity about the cleanliness of the house and getting dinner together.

The book ends pretty abruptly and you have to read the next book to finish up some of the story-lines. ( )

This book came to me via two friends. I've read the series before or a companion series that features some of the same characters.

For me, the number of characters in this book--some with very similar names--made it difficult to keep track of who was who and who was with whom. I felt like there really was no focal point character.

My other issue with most Macomber books is the sexual level she allows her characters to go to in what is/was marketed as a "clean" romance series. For this book, I will give her that Justine and Seth are married to each other and sex within marriage is true-to-life. My big issue with them is that though they seem to both know that they need to talk about important issues, it seems they end up having sex rather than talking about those issues. Apparently, they must have talked about them offstage since Seth gives up commercial fishing which would keep him away for months at a time and they decide to purchase a local restaurant. I did like that there was a discussion of restaurants having a high failure rate--though we didn't see any stumbling blocks along the way for them as they worked on changing the restaurant to their vision for it. And of course, it's fiction, so their restaurant will probably thrive despite the high failure level for new restaurants.

My biggest "sex" issue with this book is what happens between Maryellen and Jon. Jon's obviously interested in a relationship with Maryellen while she's still gun shy due to a previous marriage when she was very young. I'd like to think that Jon's forcing her to visit him at his home to get photos for her gallery was not a preplanned seduction to get her into bed--it it was, I would have hoped he'd also planned birth control, but not all guys think birth control is their responsibility. I'd like to think, based on what I see of Jon in other parts of the book, that he would be a responsible man and have had supplies on hand if he'd planned on trying to lure Maryellen to his bed.

Maryellen and Jon have what ends up being a one-night-stand. Maryellen ends up pregnant. She does make the assumption that Jon will be relieved that he is absolved of parental responsibility instead of telling him and seeing what his reaction will be. I did feel bad that Jon ended up finding out she was pregnant by accident instead of hearing it from her; however, I found it hard to believe that he wouldn't have heard someone talking about it prior to Maryellen's obviously pregnant self showing up in his work kitchen. Jack seems to have some secret in his past that we don't learn in this book. Maryellen ends up telling us about her earlier marriage relationship and pregnancy during this book. And honestly--to get pregnant outside of being married once is bad enough, but now she's had it happen twice!!

There's also one other couple--Jack and Grace, I think--where there's one scene where Jack seems to be inviting Grace to an "intimate" evening and that gets interrupted by Jack's son's (ex)girlfriend going into labor. Again, something I feel should be only in a marriage relationship, so Jack's attempt didn't sit well with me (though I guess since both were married to someone else before and had sexual relationships within their marriages--both have children--that sex is something they'd think about in a relationship that is turning serious. I just didn't like that he wanted something to happen when they don't even seem to have their relationship figured out yet. I could understand if they wanted to talk about compatibility etc. but that didn't seem to be his goal, which was a bit disappointing to me ( )