About the Book
For fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Mary Kay Andrews, comes New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak's newest standalone work of women's fiction, a big, sweeping novel about family and the ties that bind and challenge us. In this novel, three generations of women from the same family share a house and work together at a bookstore in Colonial Beach over the course of a summer.
How do you start a new chapter when you haven’t closed the book on the last one?
Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac’s husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers—she still has no idea where he went or why. After being happily married for twenty years, she can’t imagine moving forward without him, but for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try.
Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to
the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort by working
alongside her mother and aunt at their quaint bookshop, only to learn that her
daughter is facing a life change neither of them saw coming and her mother has
been hiding a terrible secret for years. And when she runs into Quinn
Vanderbilt—the boy who stole her heart in high school—old feelings start to
bubble up again. Is she free to love him, or should she hold out hope for her
husband’s return? She can only trust her heart…and hope it won’t lead her
astray.
About the Author
Brenda Novak, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, has penned over sixty novels. She is a five-time nominee for the RITA Award and has won the National Reader's Choice, the Bookseller's Best, the Bookbuyer's Best, and many other awards. She also runs Brenda Novak for the Cure, a charity to raise money for diabetes research (her youngest son has this disease). To date, she’s raised $2.5 million. For more about Brenda, please visit www.brendanovak.com.
Author Links
TWITTER: @Brenda_Novak
Instagram: @authorbrendanovak
Q & A with Author
Did you go to the library when you were in elementary school? If so, do you remember any of your favorite books or series from childhood?
The
library in elementary school was where I developed my love of reading. I
remember hating to read in the beginning, but once my teacher took us to the
library and let us choose any book we wanted, I happened upon a shelf of
classics. I picked up JANE EYRE and absolutely devoured it. Then I went back
and got THE SECRET GARDEN and moved through that entire shelf within weeks. I
remember thinking, “So this is
reading!” And I’ve loved it ever since.
What hobbies do you enjoy?
A: I love to play pickleball. My oldest son introduced me to the game and gave me a racquet for Mother’s Day, and I’ve been playing ever since. It’s such a fun/addictive thing to do. I also spend a lot of time with my two grandchildren. They’re not quite a hobby, of course, but if I’m not working that’s where I spend most of my time.
Where would you choose to go on
holiday if time and money were not of consideration?
A: Two years ago, I would’ve said Egypt, but I
was able to go there the year before the pandemic started, and I absolutely
loved it. I’ve always been fascinated by their antiquities. They have an
absolute embarrassment of riches when it comes to relics from two thousand or
more years ago. Now I would have to say India. I don’t yet know a lot about
that, but it seems so exotic and wonderful to me--and I love the food. India is
definitely on my bucket list!
Is there a genre that you have not
written in that you might like to try some day?
A: I would love to write a long historical
saga. I actually have one brewing in my mind, so...who knows? Maybe one day
I’ll get around to writing it.
Do you have pets or animals you would like to have as pets?
A: I
raised five kids, so I’m taking a break from being responsible for other
people--even animals. But I have a grand-dog--a Chow Chow named Simba, and he’s
so fluffy and mild tempered. It’s the same as having grandbabies. I get all the
fun without the hard work! Ha!
The Bookstore on the Beach by Brenda Novak is a multifaceted novel. Autumn’s
husband disappeared eighteen months ago, and she has exhausted every avenue
trying to locate him. Autumn along with
her two teenage children are heading to her mother’s beachside town for the
summer. It will give them a chance to
relax, be together, and heal. Autumn’s
oldest child, Taylor is having a tough time.
Taylor feels emotionally unconnected plus she has a secret she is keeping
from her family. Mary, Autumn’s mother,
has kept something from Autumn her whole life.
Mary is afraid her daughter will learn the truth, but she does not feel
it is the right time to share. Autumn
reconnects with her high school crush and old feelings resurface. What should happen, though, if her husband returns? The novel contained good writing with realistic
characters. The author packed a lot into
the book with a missing husband, a teen questioning her sexuality, a woman with
cancer, a woman with a hidden past, a second chance romance, a teen pregnancy, a
criminal ex-wife, and expansion of the bookstore. It was easy to follow the various storylines
once I got into the book. I did feel the
ending was abrupt and needed an epilogue to make it feel complete. I enjoyed the descriptions of the bookstore,
the beach, and Mary’s cottage. This story allows us to follow one family and
the issues they are encountering over the course of a summer. This is a dramatic tale about one family’s
drama. The Bookstore on the Beach is a good
book to read while sitting beside a pool.
Excerpt
Tuesday, June 8
Today her daughter was returning for the
summer. Mary Langford gazed eagerly out at the street in front of her small
bookstore, looking for a glimpse of Autumn’s car and, when she saw nothing
except a large family going into the ice cream parlor at the end of the block,
checked her watch. Three-thirty. Autumn had called at lunchtime to say that she
and the kids were making good time. They probably wouldn’t be much longer.
“You’ve been quiet today,” Laurie commented
from where she sat behind the counter, straightening the pens, tape, stapler
and bookmarks.
Mary turned from the large front window she’d
recently decorated with posters of the hottest new releases. “I worry when
she’s on the road for so long.”
“She’ll make it, and it’ll be great to see her
and the kids. They haven’t been back since Christmas, have they?”
“No.” She picked up the feather duster and
began cleaning shelves—a never-ending job at Beach Front Books, which she and
Laurie owned as 50/50 partners. Autumn lived in Tampa, Florida, far enough away
that it wasn’t easy to get together when Taylor and Caden were in school. “And
I doubt they’ll come back for the holidays this year.” Fortunately, they were
more consistent about returning for the summer—except for last summer, of
course, which was understandable. Mary hoped she’d be able to count on that
continuing, but with the kids getting older, nothing was certain. Taylor had
only one more year of high school before heading off to college. Caden had two.
Mary feared this might be the last time, for a while, they’d all be together in
Sable Beach.
“You could go visit them,” Laurie pointed out.
Autumn had invited her many times. Remembering
the arguments her refusal had sparked over the years caused Mary’s stomach to
churn. She wanted to go to Tampa, wanted to make it so that her daughter
wouldn’t have to do all the
traveling. Autumn had been going through so much lately. But the thought of
venturing into unfamiliar territory filled Mary with dread. Other than to go to
Richmond occasionally, which was the closest big city, she hadn’t left the
sleepy Virginia Beach town she called home in thirty-five years. “Yes, but you
know me. This is the only place I feel safe.”
Laurie rocked back on the tall stool. “Well,
if the fear hasn’t gone away by now, I guess it’s not going to.”
“No. I don’t talk about it anymore, but the
past is as real to me now as it’s ever been.”
Although the store had been busy earlier, what
with the influx of tourists for the season, foot traffic had slowed. When that
happened, they often talked more than they worked. Beach Front Books wasn’t
Laurie’s sole source of income. Her husband, Christopher Conklin, was a
talented artist. He painted all kinds of seascapes, and while he wasn’t in any
prestigious galleries, he sold his paintings in a section they reserved for him
in the store as well as online.
But Mary, who’d never been married, had no
other support. Beach Front Books didn’t make a large profit, but no one loved
the escape that books provided more than she did, and the store garnered enough
business that she could eke out a living. That was all that mattered to her.
“Autumn gets so mad that I won’t go out and
see the world. Visit. Travel. That sort of thing,” she murmured, wishing she
didn’t have the scars and limitations that had, at times, put such a strain on
their relationship. “She keeps saying I’m too young to live like an old lady.”
“She has a point.”
Mary sighed. “I’m not young anymore.”
“What are you talking about? You’re nine years
younger than me. Fifty-four is not old.”
That was true, but she’d had to grow up far
sooner than most people. “I feel ancient.”
“Next year, you should go to Tampa, if they
ask you.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Maybe you’ll prove that you can.”
Mary couldn’t help bristling. She didn’t like
it when Laurie pushed her. “No.”
“Autumn doesn’t understand, Mary. That’s what
causes almost every fight you have with her.”
“I know. And I feel bad about that. But
there’s nothing I can do.”
Laurie lowered her voice. “You could tell her
the truth…”
“Absolutely not,” Mary snapped. “Why would I
ever do that?”
“There are reasons. And you know it. We’ve
talked about this before,” Laurie said, remaining calm, as always. That was one
of the many things Mary liked about her—she was steady and patient, and that
steadiness somehow helped Mary cope when old feelings and memories began to
resurface.
In this instance, Laurie might also be right.
Mary could feel the past rising up from its deep slumber. Maybe it was time to tell Autumn.
But there were just as many reasons not to—compelling reasons. And the thought of
revealing the past, seeing it all through her daughter’s eyes, made Mary feel
ill. “I can’t broach that subject right now, not with what she’s been dealing
with the past year and a half. Besides, it’s been so long it’s almost as if it
happened to someone else,” she said, mentally shoving those dark years into the
deepest recesses of her mind. “I want to stay as far away from that subject as
possible.”
Laurie didn’t call her out on the
contradiction her statement created. And Mary was glad. She couldn’t have
explained how it could be real and frightening and always present and yet she
could feel oddly removed from it at the same time.
“Except that it didn’t happen to someone else,” Laurie responded
sadly. “It happened to you.”
* * *
The scent of the ocean, more than anything
else, told Autumn she was home. She lowered her window as soon as she rolled
into town and breathed deeply, letting the salt air fill her lungs.
“What are you doing?” Taylor held her long
brown hair in one hand to keep it from whipping across her face as she looked
over from the passenger seat.
Autumn smiled, which was something she knew
her children hadn’t seen her do enough of lately. “Just getting a little air.”
“You hate it when I roll down my window,” Caden grumbled from the backseat.
“I’m hoping I won’t be so irritable anymore.”
For the past eighteen months, Autumn had been mired in the nightmare that had
overtaken her life. She almost hadn’t come to Sable Beach because of it. But
when her children had each pleaded with her, separately, to ask if they could
spend the summer with “Mimi” like they used to, she knew they needed some
normalcy in their lives—needed to retain at least one of their parents. Her
grief and preoccupation with her husband’s disappearance had probably made them
feel as though she’d gone missing, too—at least the mother they’d known before.
She hoped by returning to the place that held so many wonderful memories for
them all, they’d be able to heal and reconnect.
It wasn’t as if she could do anything more for
Nick, anyway. That was the ugly reality. She’d exhausted every viable lead and
still had no idea where he was. If he was dead, she had to figure out a way to
go on without him for the sake of their children.
The second she spotted the bookstore, the
nostalgia that welled up—along with memories of a simpler, easier time—nearly
brought her to tears. When she was a little girl, she’d spent so many hours
following her mother through the narrow aisles of that quaint shop, which
looked like something from the crooked, narrow streets of Victorian London,
dusting bookshelves or reading in the nook her mother had created for her.
She’d spent just as much time at Beach Front
Books when she was a teenager, only then she was stocking shelves, ordering
inventory, working the register—and, again, reading, but this time sitting on
the stool behind the counter while waiting for her next customer.
God, it was good to be back. As hard as she
could be on her mother for her unreasonable fears and idiosyncrasies, she
couldn’t wait to see her. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how much
she missed her mother. So what if Mary was almost agoraphobic with her
unwillingness to leave her little bungalow a block away from the sea? She was
always there, waiting to welcome Autumn home. Maybe Autumn had never had a
father, or the little brother or sister she’d secretly longed for, but she was
lucky enough to have the enduring love of a good mother.
“There it is.” She pointed to the bookstore as
she slowed to look for a place to park.
“We’re not going to the beach house?” Caden
asked, looking up from whatever he’d been doing on his phone.
“Not right now. First, we’re stopping to see
Mimi and Aunt Laurie. Then we’ll take our stuff over to the house.”
A glance in the rearview mirror showed her his
scowl. “I hope it won’t be too late to go to the beach,” he said.
“I’m sure we can manage to get there before
dark,” she responded as she wedged her white Volvo SUV between a red
convertible and a gray sedan and grabbed her purse.
Taylor spoke, causing her to pause with her
hand on the door latch. “You already seem different.”
“In what way?” Autumn asked.
“Less uptight. Not so sad.”
“Coming here makes me happy,” she admitted.
“Then why were we going to skip it again?”
Caden asked.
Autumn twisted around to look at him. “You
know why.”
A pained expression claimed her daughter’s
face. “Does this mean you’re letting go?”
“Of Dad? Of course she’s letting go,” Caden answered,
the hard edge to his voice suggesting he considered the question to be a stupid
one. “Dad’s dead.”
“Don’t say that!” Taylor snapped. “We don’t
know it’s true. He could be coming back.”
“It’s been eighteen months, Tay,” Caden
responded. “He would’ve come back by now if he could.”
“Stop it, both of you.” Autumn didn’t want
them getting into an argument right before they saw her mother. They were at
each other’s throats so often lately; it drove her crazy to constantly have to
play referee. But she could hardly blame them. They’d lost their father, and
they didn’t know how or why. And she had no explanation. “Life’s been hard
enough lately,” she added. “Let’s not make it any harder.”
“Then you tell her,”
Caden said. “Dad’s dead, and we have to move on. Right? Isn’t that the truth?
Go ahead and say it—you are letting
go.”
Was she? Is that what this trip signified? If
not, how much longer should she hold on? And would holding on be best for them?
She couldn’t imagine her kids would want to spend another eighteen months
swallowed up by grief and consumed with seeking answers they may never find.
Taylor was seventeen, going to be a senior and starting to investigate
colleges. Caden was only a year behind her. Surely, they would prefer to look
forward and not back.
Regardless, Autumn wasn’t sure she could continue to search, not like she had. She
was exhausted—mentally and physically. She’d put everything she had into the
past year and a half, and it hadn’t made a damn bit of difference. That was the
most disheartening part of it.
“I’m continuing to hold out hope,” she said,
even though everyone she’d talked to, including the FBI, insisted her husband
must be dead. It was difficult to see the idyllic, two-parent upbringing she
was trying to give her kids—something she’d never had herself—fall apart that
quickly and easily, and the heartbreak, loneliness and frustration of looking
for Nick, with no results, created such a downward spiral for her. She knew it
had been just as painful for her children. That was why maybe she should let go—to provide the best quality of life
for them as possible.
“What does that mean? Are you going to keep looking for him?” Caden
pressed. “Is that how you’re going to spend the summer?”
He could tell something had changed, that
coming here signified a difference, and he wanted to reach the bottom line. But
Autumn wasn’t ready to admit that she’d failed. Not with as many times as she’d
tried to comfort them by promising she’d have answers eventually.
She opened her mouth to try to explain what
she was thinking in the gentlest possible way when she spotted her mother. Mary
had come out of the store and was waving at them.
“There’s your grandmother,” she said.
Thankfully, her children let the conversation
lapse and got out of the car.
“Hi, Mimi.” With his long strides, Caden
reached Mary first. Although he wasn’t yet fully grown, he was already six-one.
And Taylor was five foot ten. They were both tall, like their father.
Mary gave each of the kids a big hug and
exclaimed about how grown-up they both were and how excited she was to see them
before turning to Autumn.
“You’ve lost weight,” she murmured gently, a
hint of worry belying her smile before they embraced.
“I’m okay, Mom.” Autumn could smell a hint of
the bookstore on Mary’s clothes and realized that was another scent she’d never
forget. It represented her childhood and all the great stories she’d read
growing up. She’d once hoped to read every book in the store. She hadn’t quite
made it, thanks to new releases and fluctuating inventory, but she’d read more
books than most people. She still considered books to be a big part of her
life. “It’s good to be home.”
“Laurie’s dying to see you. Let’s go in and
say hello,” Mary said and held the door.
As soon as the bell sounded, Laurie hurried
out from behind the register. “There you are! It’s a good thing you came when
you did. I was afraid it would drive your mother crazy waiting for you. She’s
been so anxious for you to arrive. We both have.”
Taylor allowed her aunt to give her an exuberant
squeeze. “I’m glad we got to come this year. Where’s Uncle Chris?”
“Probably on the beach somewhere, painting.
You know how he is once the weather warms up—just like a child, eager to get
outdoors.”
They took a few minutes to visit the small
section of the store dedicated to Christopher’s work so they could admire his
latest paintings. Autumn was especially enamored with one he’d done of the
bookstore that portrayed a child out front, hanging on to her mother with one
hand and carrying a stack of books with the other. That child could’ve been her
once upon a time. She almost wondered if his memory of her had inspired it,
which was why she decided, if that painting didn’t sell before she left, she’d
buy it herself and take it back to Tampa.
Are you ready to read The Bookstore on the Beach? The Bookstore on the Beach is available from Amazon*, Target, Walmart, Book Depository, Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Indigo, and IndieBound. Brenda Novak has When I Found You: A Silver Springs Novel releasing June 29. She also has Keep Me Warm at Christmas publishing September 28. You can find Brenda Novak's other books here. Thank you for visiting today. Next time I plan on discussing Deadly Editions by Paige Shelton. It is the 6th A Scottish Bookshop Mystery. I hope you have a bright day. Take care, be kind, and Happy Reading!
Kris
The Avid Reader
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