She knows what’s best for everyone but herself…
With a past like hers, Jessica Clayton feels safer in a
life spent on the road. She’s made a career out of helping others downsize --
because she’s learned the hard way that the less “stuff,” the better, a policy
she applies equally to her relationships. But a new client is taking Jess back
to Cape Sanctuary, a town she once called home…and that her little sister,
Rachel, still does. The years apart haven’t made a dent in the guilt Jess still
carries after a handgun took the lives of both their parents and changed
everything between them.
While Jess couldn’t wait to put the miles between her and
Cape Sanctuary, Rachel put down roots, content for the world -- and her sister
-- to think she has a picture-perfect life. But with the demands of her
youngest child’s disability, Rachel’s marriage has begun to fray at the seams.
She needs her sister now more than ever, yet she’s learned from painful
experience that Jessica doesn’t do family, and she shouldn’t count on her now.
Against her judgment, Jess finds herself becoming
attached -- to her sister and her family, even to her client’s interfering son,
Nate -- and it’s time to put everything on the line. Does she continue running
from her painful past, or stay put and make room for the love and joy that come
along with it?
Good book about the complications of family life and
relationships told from the viewpoints of three people. I enjoyed the realism
of their struggles with their pasts, the effects of those pasts on the present,
and the desire to change the future.
Jess and Rachel are sisters whose traumatic childhoods
affected them both. As children, they were very close, but the effects of their
parents’ deaths drove a wedge between them. Though they see each other
occasionally, their meetings are always strained. Neither one knows how to fix
it.
Jess is independent, self-contained, and very much a loner.
Her business, Transitions, involves going to a client’s home, helping them
clear things out, then moving on to the next job. She doesn’t spend enough time
with anyone to form a relationship, and that suits her fine. She tells herself
she is too busy for a man in her life. In reality, her parents’ marriage put
her entirely off the idea of love. Her father was a controlling bully, and her
mother believed he could do no wrong. Jess misses the close relationship she
had with Rachel and hopes she can use this time in Cape Sanctuary to mend
fences.
Rachel settled down in Cape Sanctuary, marrying her high
school sweetheart, Cody. They have three children, the youngest recently
diagnosed with autism. Rachel is very active on social media, where she has a
large following, but the perfect life she portrays online isn’t so perfect in
real life. Her quest for perfection has put a strain on her marriage and driven
her close to a nervous breakdown. Rachel wants her old relationship with Jess
back but has no confidence that it will actually happen.
Nate is the son of Jess’s newest client, Eleanor, and the
single father of thirteen-year-old Sophie. He is very protective of his mother,
who is still grieving his father’s death, and is suspicious of Jess when she arrives.
He has his hands full with his construction business and Sophie’s newly
acquired teenage attitude and has put any romantic relationships on the back
burner for the foreseeable future.
I enjoyed seeing the various characters establish or
re-establish connections with those they love. There are many past hurts,
fears, and desires that need to be faced before our characters can move on to
the happiness they each long for. Rachel struck me as the one who is most
overwhelmed. The effect of her childhood on her is the need for everything to
be perfect. Her highly popular social media account portrays a family far from
reality, and she struggles to reconcile the two. In real life, she deals with a
husband who works long hours, a two-year-old newly diagnosed as autistic, and a
refusal to believe that it is okay to ask for help. That attitude puts a strain
on her marriage, and she seems unable to change. Jess’s arrival is just one
more thing for her to deal with. I admit there were times I wanted to shake her.
Her husband was great, but he couldn’t do anything right in her eyes. Though
tentative in her attempts at first, I liked how Jess saw Rachel’s struggles and
tried to help. Though things were a little better, it took an explosive
confrontation between the two to knock down the walls that kept them apart and
finally start the healing process. Admitting she needs help also went a long
way toward helping Rachel and Cody reconnect. I loved Jess’s suggestion at the
end and how Rachel ran with it.
I liked Jess. It is evident from the start that she loves
her job and helping people streamline their lives. Though she usually keeps a
professional distance between herself and her clients, it’s clear that her
relationship with Eleanor is different from the start. I loved how Eleanor
refused to be business-only and sucked Jess right into the family. Jess was somewhat
unnerved by the emotions that working with Eleanor stirred up, as she wasn’t
accustomed to caring that way for her clients. I loved her kindness and
patience as they worked their way through Eleanor’s treasures and memories of
her husband, Jack. At the end, a crisis with Eleanor makes Jess realize that
she’s risked more with this family than anyone else in many years.
Then there’s Nate. Once he got past his suspicions about
Jess, he couldn’t deny the effect she had on him. I loved watching them spend
time together, discovering how easy it is to talk to each other. Sparks of
attraction are there also, but with Jess’s stay being temporary, they are
reluctant to pursue it. Well, Jess is reluctant. The feelings he stirs in her
scare her, as she has visions of turning into her mother. I ached for them both
when Jess finishes the job because Nate wants her to stay, and Jess wants to,
also, but doesn’t trust herself. I loved the advice she got and what she did
with it. The epilogue was terrific and showed that anything was possible with
love.
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