THE INN AT EAGLE POINT

Author: Sherryl Woods ISBN: 9780778326267 4/2009 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: MIRA

It's been years since Abby O'Brien Winters set foot in Chesapeake Shores. The Maryland town her father built has too many sad memories and Abby too few spare moments, thanks to her demanding Wall Street career, the crumbling of her marriage, and energetic twin daughters. Then one panicked phone call from her youngest sister brings her racing back home to protect Jess's dream of renovating the charming Inn at Eagle Point. But saving the inn from foreclosure means dealing not only with her own fractured family, but also with Trace Riley, the man Abby left ten years ago. Trace can be a roadblock to her plans ...or proof that second chances happen in the most unexpected ways.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Sherryl Woods sets her contemporary romance, THE INN AT EAGLE POINT (the first in her new Chesapeake Shores series), in Maryland where Abby O’Brien Winters goes home to help her youngest sister Jess out of a bind. Jess has dealt with ADHD all her life and buying the inn, restoring it to the glory it was when her father built it and turning it into a tourist destination, has been the first thing she’s been able to focus on in years. Unfortunately, she’s mostly focused on the décor and remodeling and not her checkbook. The bank is about to foreclose on her dream and Jess hopes Abby, a Wall Street whiz kid, can bail her out.

Abby whips things into financial shape and buys into the project with some of her own cash, only to find out that the loan officer in charge of Jess’s mortgage is Trace Riley. When Abby left home to make it big in stocks, she left Trace behind because she was afraid he’d cave to his father’s dictates and give up his dream of becoming an architect in New York City. Trace delayed his dream after Abby broke his heart, but he did carry through. Just not in time to get Abby before she was scooped up by a trust fund society boy. Now Abby is free of her passive-aggressive husband (but with her 5-tear old twin daughters in tow), and Trace is working for his dad in order to prove to his father that his sister is really the one ready to step into her father’s shoes when he retires. Is it possible that Trace and Abby have a second chance to make their dreams of being together come true?

Woods creates the epitome of the modern woman with Abby. She’s smart, the oldest of five siblings, trying to be the peacemaker between not only her divorced parents, but be the parent to her brothers and sisters, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle with her high powered job, twin daughters, and sniping ex-husband. She’s so busy that she’s assumed her ex was right, that it was her busyness that caused him to throw in the towel. It’s probably a good thing she doesn’t know everything going on in her ex’s life. Or is it?

Trace has none of that. He just feels closed out of Abby’s life. Even ten years down the road, he’s never let a woman get close to him like Abby. So why is he suddenly brought home just in time to engineer a situation bound to bring Abby home? Does his father really want him in charge of the bank, or is there an even greater motive?

THE INN AT EAGLE POINT stands on its own perfectly well, but Woods leaves enough bread crumbs that the reader is sure to follow her down the series’ path as we all get involved in the other O’Brien and Riley family members’ lives. Not only are there strained relations in Abby’s generation, but her dad and his two brothers are still nursing wounds from when they built the planned community of Chesapeake Shores. Trace and Abby will be the rock that all the other stories are anchored to, and a solid anchor it is with its lovely romance, bits of passion, and enduring family dynamics. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.

Susan Barton