Mary Kay Andrews, the New York Times bestselling author and Queen of the Beach Reads delivers her next page-turner for the summer with The Newcomer.

In trouble and on the run…

After she discovers her sister Tanya dead on the floor of her fashionable New York City townhouse, Letty Carnahan is certain she knows who did it: Tanya’s ex; sleazy real estate entrepreneur Evan Wingfield. Even in the grip of grief and panic Letty heeds her late sister’s warnings: “If anything bad happens to me—it’s Evan. Promise me you’ll take Maya and run. Promise me.”

With a trunkful of emotional baggage…

So Letty grabs her sister’s Mercedes and hits the road with her wailing four-year-old niece Maya. Letty is determined to out-run Evan and the law, but run to where? Tanya, a woman with a past shrouded in secrets, left behind a “go-bag” of cash and a big honking diamond ring—but only one clue: a faded magazine story about a sleepy mom-and-pop motel in a Florida beach town with the improbable name of Treasure Island. She sheds her old life and checks into an uncertain future at The Murmuring Surf Motel.

The No Vacancy sign is flashing & the sharks are circling…

And that’s the good news. Because The Surf, as the regulars call it, is the winter home of a close-knit flock of retirees and snowbirds who regard this odd-duck newcomer with suspicion and down-right hostility. As Letty settles into the motel’s former storage room, she tries to heal Maya’s heartache and unravel the key to her sister’s shady past, all while dodging the attention of the owner’s dangerously attractive son Joe, who just happens to be a local police detective. Can Letty find romance as well as a room at the inn—or will Joe betray her secrets and put her behind bars? With danger closing in, it’s a race to find the truth and right the wrongs of the past.

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Fly Girl’s Review

I picked this book because the cover looked so great. I was excited because I thought it would be some wicked mean people trying to keep her from fitting in at the Inn. It turns out in this one the only mean people were her family and her niece’s fathers. The folks at the in were harmless when Letty showed them her real personality, which was genuine, caring, and respectful. Just like Ava the Inn owner. Turns out Letty had a lot to learn about herself and what she really was looking for in life, not just trying to figure out how to protect her niece.

The heartbreak we see in Letty is powerful. She is not only dealing with the loss of her sister, but really everything she knew about her family. Her family was pretty terrible to her with the exception of her grandmother. The non existent father made her susceptible to men of less than stellar character. Her sister was another member who really put her through the wringer by taking over her life and just basically being a pretty awful person with no morals. The best thing to come from her sister was Maya who Letty cherishes as if she’s her own and puts Maya first through all the tough times she ahead when her sister is murdered.

The romance in this one was soft and I think pretty real feeling for someone in her situation. They both realized there was more to the other, but they were both dealing with a lot on their plate. Joe didn’t try to take over Letty’s life, but rather he coaxed her back into living for herself and Maya, making life work on her terms. He also taught her you could rely on someone and not give up yourself. Letty taught Joe, that there were people out there just as good as his mother and who were willing to not consume him, but fit in with his personality and life. It was like seeing two puzzle pieces fit together. It wasn’t the final piece to the puzzle, but it was the two pieces that made you see where a whole bunch more went. A start of something good.

This was a feel good romance with some intrigue, suspense, and a cast of hilarious older characters. I loved what an easy read it was and how all the puzzle pieces fit in the end to make the whole. I’m giving this a 4 of 5 because there was no “ah, hah” moment, but an easy summer reading experience.

4 of 5 Propellers

 

Connect with Mary Kay Andrews

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MARY KAY ANDREWS is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels (including Hello, Summer; Sunset Beach; The High Tide Club; The Weekenders; Beach Town; Save the Date; Ladies’ Night; Christmas Bliss; Spring Fever; Summer Rental; The Fixer Upper; Deep Dish; Blue Christmas; Savannah Breeze; Hissy Fit; Little Bitty Lies; and Savannah Blues), and one cookbook, The Beach House Cookbook.

A native of St. Petersburg, Florida, she earned a B.A. in journalism from The University of Georgia. After a 14-year career working as a reporter at newspapers including The Savannah Morning News, The Marietta Journal, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she spent the final ten years of her career, she left journalism in 1991 to write fiction.

Her first novel, Every Crooked Nanny, was published in 1992 by HarperCollins. She went on to write ten critically acclaimed mysteries under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck. In 2002, she assumed the pen name Mary Kay Andrews with the publication of Savannah Blues. In 2006, Hissy Fit became her first New York Times bestseller, followed by twelve more New York Times, USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestsellers. To date, her novels have been published in German, Italian, Polish, Slovenian, Hungarian, Dutch, Czech and Japanese.

She and her family divide their time between Atlanta and Tybee Island, GA, where they cook up new recipes in two restored beach homes, The Breeze Inn and Ebbtide—both named after fictional places in Mary Kay’s novels, and both available to rent through Tybee Vacation Rentals. In between cooking, spoiling her grandkids, and plotting her next novel, Mary Kay is an intrepid treasure hunter whose favorite pastime is junking and fixing up old houses.

-Courtesy of her website