Sand Castle Bay

February 11, 2013
Bestseller Woods (the Sweet Magnolias series) launches a series about sisters juggling love and career with this bland contemporary. Emily Castle leaves her interior decorating business in Los Angeles to help her grandmother, whose North Carolina restaurant has been damaged by a hurricane. She encounters Boone Dorsett, whom she left 10 years before to pursue her career. Boone married another, but, conveniently, his wife died a year ago, leaving him with a guilty conscience and eight-year-old B.J., who strikes up an implausibly swift friendship with Emily. Boone is concerned about the effect a new relationship will have on his son, but he and Emily explore the possibility of starting over. This results in endless backing and forthing, as Emily juggles clients, career, and her relationship with Boone, while they discuss at length whether it’s the right thing for all involved. The only real obstruction is the hollow threat of a custody battle from Boone’s resentful mother-in-law; the conclusion is predictable and slightly cloying. Agent: Denise Marcil, Denise Marcil Literary Agency.

March 15, 2013
Three sisters return to seaside North Carolina to help their grandmother clean up hurricane damage in Woods' newest series after her Sweet Magnolias and Chesapeake Shores books. Explaining that she needed time to find herself in the world, Emily Castle turned down Boone Dorsett's proposal 10 years earlier. Boone took this to mean she was never coming back to him and married Jenny and had a son before Jenny died of an infection. Now Emily is back, as are the sparks that once flew between them. But now each is professionally successful with businesses on opposite coasts. Can their renewed passion withstand a long-distance romance as well as Boone's in-laws' threat to take away his son if he gets back with Emily? Despite a few plot gaps, Woods' signature gossipy small-town ambience mixed with the worldly complications of high-powered jobs and past heartache make this series opener sure to please readers who enjoy romance novels enriched with feisty but lovable grandmothers, charming children, and sisterly bonds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)