Anne Canadeo

Cape Light is a small, very connected, and generally religious New England village. In this first book of 20 (so far), we are introduced to some of the inhabitants of the village--the mayor and her family, who are still somewhat reeling from a scandal in the past; the local diner owner who is very set in his ways and has designs on unseating the mayor in the next election; the reverend and his wife, whose joyful news is overshadowed by a wayward family member. Characters are established and show more at least one romance blooms, in this book that covers a summer in Cape Light.

Though there are a lot of characters to keep straight, I found that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I had a few moments that needed clarity, but I followed it well enough. And for the first half of the book, I was interested in the lives and backstories of these people. In fact, I never stopped being interested in that. But what seriously detracted from it was the plight of the main character and her romantic entanglement.

Jessica Warwick, the mayor's sister, has recently moved back from not-too-far-away Boston, and she intends to return as soon as she can. She's only in town to help her ailing mother, who is starting to recover well. She has a life back in Boston, and a sort-of boyfriend. Enter Sam Morgan, whom she is immediately taken by, though she refuses to acknowledge it for a long time. But when her boyfriend conveniently gets really busy, she starts dating Sam, even while making it clear that she's moving back to Boston at the end of the summer. What follows is a ridiculously drama-filled mess that could have easily been solved in multiple ways. I don't know which of these two irritated me more--the woman who dated a guy in town while knowing that she wasn't done with the previous boyfriend yet and continued a relationship with a man who was clearly falling for her hard, despite her warning about there being no future, or the man who ignored her warning about there being no future because he held out hope that he could change her mind.

While romance novels are always pretty obvious, in that the two leads are going to end up together, I prefer those that are more in the backdrop to an interesting plot. There was little in the way of plot involving Jessica and Sam that wasn't directly related to their relationship. The situations that occurred just to make them fall in love and/or add drama to their relationship were so much more obviously contrived than I prefer. By the end, I just wanted the book to be done already, which makes me sad, because I did enjoy unraveling the lives of the others in town.

The Christianity in the book was weirdly both shallow and heavily permeating. Apparently a large amount of the village's inhabitants go to the same church, and many of them have a strong faith. Several others are seeking, and a lot of the same advice is given by different people. The series starts with 4 not-specifically-holiday books, but apparently by book 5, it continued as a Christmas series, which is what brought it to my attention at this time of year in the first place.

The writing was a bit pedestrian, but it only bothered me at times. I am going to give the series another chance, because just about every plot arc that was started in this book was left hanging, and I really do want to see what happens. Since the main thing that bothered me about this book should take a back seat in the future, I am hopeful about continuing. With proper planning, I can be ready for the first of the Christmas books by November or December. show less

In this latest installment about the Black Sheep knitters group, Phoebe decides to try her hand at her own business venture. Having successfully served as assistant manager at Maggie's knitting shop, Phoebe applies her managerial and creative skills to opening her own shop in the local artisan market. Her plans are scuttled when strange things start to happen: her market stall is trashed, and her online presence is marred with critical, negative reviews. Maggie and her knitting friends group show more together to get to the bottom of these deeds and help Phoebe.

This is a cute, cozy read, and will probably appeal to readers who like to knit. The characters can be annoying at times with their over the top comments though. Everything is explained in the end, and the stage is set for the next book in the series. Of course, any cover featuring cute dogs wearing knitted attire is a sure draw for knitting and dog lovers.

I received this novel from the publisher and from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own. show less

"What have we become if we give in to fear and prejudice, if we ignore the facts and let panic override the spirit of compassion?"

It's been years since I used to start a lot of my book reviews with quotes from the books. Now that I've read this novel for the second time since I discovered it twenty years ago, pulling a quote from it feels right.

And timely.

Back when I first read the first four books in the Cape Light series, I immediately considered them to be some of my favorite reads. What show more I appreciated most about the stories still holds after my second readings of Books One and Two.

The characters are such regular, relatable folks, dealing with life in these down-to-earth stories that are so incredibly…readable.

Even with a couple of supporting characters who are, well, downright jerks much of the time, the overall easy readability is still there. And the small-town setting is lovely and rather homey.

Now, there are some aspects of a particular "big reveal" in this story that aren't fully believable, I'd say.

Also, decades ago, I considered the faith content in this novel to be light. Or "lite." (Likely because it isn't evangelical, unlike the content in much of the Christian fiction I used to read.) But now, while I'd still say the faith content in this novel has a gentle vibe, I also find it to be pretty overdone, mainly because of the sermons in multiple church service scenes. I think the writing technique of "show, don't tell" is quite effective, but church sermons in fiction just feel to me like convenient ways to insert paragraphs or pages of telling, in a sense. Spelling out extended lessons from a pulpit.

These days, admittedly, when I come across sermons in novels, I usually skim through or skip past them, which I did in this case.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed my second go-'round with this book. Even got an inexplicable sense of hope as I settled into the reading. This revisit to Cape Light has been—yeah, such a timely one for me.

Note:
• a former law enforcement character's memories of past violence come up, but the details are brief and non-gratuitous show less

I found this one either on LT or listed at my local library as a "knitting mystery," so of course I had to snap it up. And it was a good, quick, cozy mystery kind of read, set in the town of Plum Harbor, Massachusetts, inside of a knit shop with a group of friends.

Lucy, the POV character, is new to the town and fairly new to knitting, having arrived after a divorce in Boston. She freelances now and has time to wander into Black Sheep knitting and, of course, solve murders with the Black show more Sheep Knitters. There are two shops in this small town, Black Sheep which is fairly new and run by Maggie, widowed these past 3 years, and Knitting Nest, the established shop with all kinds of fancy yarns and spinning wheels and an owner who is known as a bit of a grump.

The story opens with one of Maggie's former high school art students starting her publicity tour of her first knitting book. Maggie is busily preparing the shop for a big crowd the night before when the owner of the Knitting Nest, Amanda, comes in to check the details and mention that she will be coming. Within knitting store protocols, this is known as a Big Deal. Everyone is a bit excited and nervous about this news.

Sadly, the next morning, Amanda is found murdered in her shop, and while Cara is able to do her presentation about her new book and patterns and ideas, the news definitely puts a damper on what would have otherwise been a great celebration. And of course, the Black Sheep Knitters put all their combined skills together and come up with who might have done it and why.

A dog is adopted from Amanda's shop (she had several), there is a bit of romance between Lucy and the vet in town (I'm finding this is a Thing within knitting mysteries) who treats the rescue dog, and arrests happen that turn the tale topsy-turvy.

This book got 3 1/2 stars from me because of the time factor: the amount of time Lucy has to spend to go shopping for her hot date, the little amount of time she has to spend with her client, that sort of thing. Though the mystery was an interesting twist, and well-solved, and I may pick up the next one in this series at some point in time. show less