Book Review: The Long Way Home

Author: Mariah Stewart
Title: The Long Way Home
Publisher: Ballentine Books
Publish Date: Jan 29, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley

Book Blurb: 

As the only child of a wealthy investment manager, Ellie Chapman has never known anything besides a life of perfect privilege. But her years of good fortune come to an abrupt end when her father is exposed for swindling billions of dollars from innocent investors in a massive Ponzi scheme. And just like that, Ellie loses everything: money, job, home—even her fiancé, who’s jailed as her father’s partner in crime. With no job prospects on the horizon, no cash, and her family name in tatters, Ellie has only one place to go.

Sleepy St. Dennis, Maryland, is hardly where Ellie intends to stay, however. Keeping her identity a secret, she plans to sell the house her late mother left her in the small town and use the proceeds to move on with her life. Unfortunately, her ticket to a new beginning is in dire need of a laundry list of pricey improvements, many of which she’ll have to do herself. And until the house on Bay View Road is fit to be sold, the sole place Ellie will be traveling is the hardware store. But as the many charms of St. Dennis—not to mention Cameron O’Connor, the handsome local contractor who has secrets of his own—begin to work their magic, what begins as a lesson in do-it-yourself renovations might just end up as Ellie’s very own rejuvenation.

Review: The Long Way Home takes us back to St. Dennis, Maryland. This is a series that can be read in order or simply as a stand alone book. I've read the first 3 and I missed two somewhere along the line, because this is book 6 in the series.

I think St. Dennis reminds me a bit of Debbie Macomber's Blossom St series or Sherryl Woods Chesapeake Shores. Wouldn't it be nice if all our small towns were so quaint and colorful?

Ellie's character is a sweeter version of Caroline from 2 Broke Girls, complete with her own crook of a father, just like Bernie Madoff. If there wasn't already a cupcake business I'd expect her to try to start one!

The problem is unlike Caroline Channing ...Ellie Chapman is a bit blah. She doesn't want to get close to people because she doesn't want to rejected because of what her father did, yet she's looking for clues to her past.

Another problem, most people find out her secret without her telling them.

That makes things a little less interesting.

Too much falls into place easily for her and her relationship with Cameron didn't feel right either.

In comparison to the other books in this series, this one felt hurried to me and the relationship not so romantic.

Rating:  3 flowers