Tuesday Review: Rose Harbor in Bloom

Rose Harbor in Bloom

By Debbie Macomber

Publisher: Random House/Ballantine

Release: August 13, 2013

Debbie Macomber carries readers back to Rose Harbor Inn for the second book that combines new characters, including the inn’s owner, Jo Marie Rose, with a familiar setting, Cedar Cove, and occasional appearances by beloved characters from the original Cedar Cove series. The widowed Jo Marie, although still grieving for her husband Paul, who was killed in Afghanistan, is finding peace and a new sense of purpose in welcoming guests to her inn. She feels a real sense of satisfaction in setting in place the just-finished sign that announces the inn’s new name and Jo Marie as proprietor.

She is less satisfied with the state of her rose garden, which she had hoped to have ready by the time she held an open house to introduce Rose Harbor Inn to the Cedar Cove community, but she has learned that curmudgeonly handyman Mark Taylor moves at his own pace, even though it is considerably slower than Jo Marie likes. With all the inn’s rooms booked for guests who will soon be arriving and the open house scheduled for Sunday, Jo Marie doesn’t have much time to worry when Mark quits when they have an argument.

The first of her guests to arrive is Mary Smith, a businesswoman from New York, whose clear exhaustion and the scarf covering her hair loss identify her as a cancer patient. Mary left the Seattle area nineteen years ago, and without her brush with mortality, she might never have returned. She made the trip against the advice of her oncologist, but she feels a compelling need to reconnect with her past, a part of that past is in Cedar Cove and a part of it is still in Seattle.

Most of Jo Marie’s guests are in Cedar Cove to celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Julie and Kent Shivers. The Shivers’s granddaughter, party planner Annie Newton, is the family member charged with managing the details of the celebration. Annie, who is recovering from a broken engagement to a man who proved to be self-absorbed and unfaithful, finds it comforting to plan this celebration for her grandparents who have been in love for half a century. But the couple who has always seemed the essence of marital happiness to Annie seems more interested in bickering and sniping at each other than in celebrating their five decades of marriage. As if that were not disturbing enough, there is also the presence of Oliver Sutton, her grandparents’ neighbor, the bane of her existence when they were growing up. Oliver is eager for a cease fire to their hostilities, but Annie can’t forget the past.

The necessity of coming to terms with one’s past is the theme that connects all the stories in this novel. Mary must forgive herself and accept the things that cannot be changed and own the courage to embrace the joy that life still offers. Annie must forgive youthful folly and see Oliver with new eyes, recognizing that he is not the tormenter of her young years or the fiancé who betrayed her. Even Jo Marie proves to have issues with the past and with her acceptance of Paul’s death.

As always Debbie Macomber gives her readers characters who stumble and make mistakes but who learn to forgive, to love, and eventually to acquire the grace to accept life’s bounty with open hands and grateful hearts. Macomber’s readers can trust her to bring more such characters to Rose Harbor Inn to heal and to grow. Jo Marie’s story will continue to develop, the mysteries of Mark Taylor will slowly unravel, and Cedar Cove will continue to offer readers a place where peace is possible and even strangers find it feels like home.

If you require high-pressure adventure, sizzling sexy scenes, or intellectual puzzles in all you read, Debbie Macomber is not the author for you. On the other hand, if you enjoy a heartwarming, comfortable world where community is real, where people actively care for one another, and where kisses supply all the sexual passion, Debbie Macomber is among the best at creating such a world. I read all thirteen Cedar Cove books, and I, for one, am glad the Rose Harbor series allows me to return to the Cedar Cove world. I look forward to the next book in the Rose Harbor series. In the meantime, I’ll be watching Hallmark’s Cedar Cove TV series, and I almost never watch TV.

Are you a Debbie Macomber fan? What’s your favorite Macomber book? Have you watched the Cedar Cove TV series?

Review: The Inn at Rose Harbor

The Inn at Rose Harbor
By Debbie Macomber
Publisher: Ballantine
Release Date: August 14, 2012

Debbie Macomber makes her debut with a new publisher and returns her readers to familiar territory in the first book of a new series.

Just after New Year’s Day, Jo Marie Rose bought a bed-and-breakfast in Cedar Cove. Still grieving for her husband Paul Rose, a soldier killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in late April of the previous year, she has come to Cedar Cove against the wishes of her family, who want her to stay in Seattle. She and Paul had all too brief a time together, but she believes that she will never love again with the joy and intensity they knew. However, the inn gives her a sense of peace that persuades her Cedar Cove is where she needs to start to build a new life. Since she buys the inn in turnkey condition from a couple who restored the 19^th-century home, she is open for business almost immediately. The only significant change she makes is to rename the inn in her husband’s memory.

Her first guests have returned to Cedar Cove reluctantly. Joshua Weaver left twelve years ago when he joined the army shortly after he graduated from high school. His relationship with his stepfather was never cordial, and it grew worse after his mother’s death. When his stepfather accused Josh of stealing from him and kicked him out of the house shortly before graduation, their estrangement was complete. Josh came back just long enough to attend his stepbrother’s funeral five years ago, not even staying overnight. Now the project manager for a construction company, he is in Cedar Cove only because Michelle Nelson, a neighbor and social worker, has contacted him with the news that his stepfather is terminally ill and needs help. It is only a sense of duty that brings Josh home, and he is eager to take care of business and leave as soon as possible.

It is also duty that brings Abby Kinkaid to Cedar Cove. Her older brother is getting married, and his bride is from Cedar Cove. The family, who moved from Cedar Cove a decade earlier, is gathering for the wedding, and Abby knows she has to join them. She has always believed that it was the accident that changed her life irrevocably that forced her parents to move to Arizona. Abby grew up in Cedar Cove, a happy, outgoing girl who shared all the typical activities with her best friend, Angela White. But during Christmas vacation when the two were college freshmen, they were involved in an automobile accident. Angela was killed. Abby was driving, and she felt guilty for her friend’s death, a feeling exacerbated by Angela’s family’s anger and bitterness toward her. Abby believes the whole town holds her responsible for the accident, and so she cut off all contact with friends in Cedar Cove. The guilt she carries has shaped her life, turning her into a very different person from the joyful girl she once was. Even now, ten years after the fact, she refuses to stay at the hotel where the other wedding guests are. Her only idea is get through the wedding, drawing as little attention to herself as possible, and then return as quickly as she can to her home in Florida, about as far from Cedar Cove, Washington, as one can get.  

The themes that link the stories of Josh and Abby are obvious. They are both in need to forgive and to heal in order to move beyond their pasts. In Abby’s case, it is self-forgiveness, but that can be the most difficult of all. They both find far more than they expected in Cedar Cove. The strength and warmth Josh finds in Michelle helps him to forgive his stepfather and begin a new life with Michelle. Abby finds friends who celebrate her return, eventual absolution from Angela’s family, and reconnection with a man from her past. The inn at Rose Harbor promises to be a place of healing and new beginnings not only for Jo Marie but also for all who visit.

Fans who have loved Macomber’s Cedar Cove books will be happy to see that the new series has all the warmth and sense of community that made the original Cedar Cove series so beloved. Old friends such as Grace Harding, Olivia Griffin, and Peggy Belden make brief appearances. I suspect others will show up in subsequent books. If this first book sets the pattern, this series will be the same hybrid of women’s fiction and romance that characterized the other Cedar Cove books. There is even a curmudgeonly, ex-military handyman, Mark Taylor, who promises to add interest and perhaps unanticipated romance to Jo Marie’s new life. Nobody is better than Debbie Macomber at writing books that show hope and love triumphant over the staggering blows life throws at people. There is little new about this new series other than the publisher, but Macomber’s sales suggest more of the same is exactly what her fans want.

Are you a Debbie Macomber fan? What do you think accounts for her huge popularity?