Funny enough a friend asked me about Mary Alice Monroe earlier this week. I realized she had a standalone historical novel come out after a number of years of not having anything outside of “The Beach House” series. I told her that I loved Mary Alice Monroe’s earlier works, loved “The Book Club” and was surprised but pleased to see the first book of “The Beach House” series in my Kindle as previously read (eons ago). I decided to re-read this one and “Swimming Lessons.”
Honestly, this book holds up, but I think I loved it way more back when I first read it, I could not give this book more than 3 stars. I know it came out when I was I think 22 or 23. I recall that it reminded me a lot of my relationship with my mother towards her death. I left my hometown, and I know parts of her resented me for it, and I had the older brother who could do no wrong too. I just loved reading about Cara and Olivia (Luvie) and them trying to come together as mother and daughter later in life.
Caretta Rutledge, known as Cara has left her family behind in the south and in the Lowcountry that she grew up in. However, Cara’s mother asks her to return home and she does though still feeling tons of resentment. Cara’s brother Palmer though is up to no good, and she feels resentful of her mother focusing on loggerhead turtles and an unwed teen, Toy Sooner (see “Swimming Lessons”) living there.
I thought this was a great book to a series that has lost some of it’s shine. I loved reading about Cara and her anger towards her family and them pushing her out. And we do get some romance for Cara. I also got a kick out of reading about the turtles and what lengths the locals went to to guard nests and make sure they made it to the ocean.
The main reason for the three stars though is that Monroe just kinds of rushes by any conflict. Cara has issues with her mother, glossed over after a few chapters. She goes from city girl to turtle woman real quick and I got whiplash. And I don’t know, I think the one part of the book towards the end made me cringe. It just read so Lifetime Movie to me that I just could not.