Winter Cottage

Katie B

Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars

This was a really enjoyable work of fiction that had elements of romance and mystery. Lucy Kincaid was raised by her single mother, Beth. After Beth dies, Lucy finds out she has inherited a house, known as the Winter Cottage, in the town of Cape Hudson, Virginia, which is where her mother grew up. Lucy knows nothing about her mother's past, and what made her leave her hometown as a teenager and never return. She stumbles upon some video recordings from the late 1980s of her then teenage mother interviewing the home's former owner, Catherine Buchanan, for a school project, and soon Lucy realizes this is a home filled with secrets of the past.

The story alternates between Lucy in the present day, her mother in the 1980s, and Claire working for the wealthy Buchanan family in the early 1900s. Each of these characters brought something to the table in making this an interesting read however I really felt the most invested in Claire's story.

There were a few things that I didn't particularly care for in the book. Some things just did not seem realistic in the year 2018. The whole this is a small town thing therefore things are done differently didn't ring true in a few instances. The other thing that bugged me was I thought the author tried to fill the story with too many twists to the point which it detracted from the characters and story. None of these things ruined the book for me though. They were just minor annoyances.

Definitely a good read if you are looking for something with interesting female lead characters. I would definitely read something again by Mary Ellen Taylor who also writes books under the name Mary Burton.

I won a free ebook in a giveaway but was under no obligation to post a review. All views expressed are my honest opinion.

Julie is on vacation

Rating: really liked it
Loved it! Look for this review on the Harlequin Junkies website in the near future. www.harlequinjunkies.com

Sandy *The world could end while I was reading and I would never notice*

Rating: really liked it
EXCERPT: "Was it love at first sight?"

Mrs Buchanan is silent for a long moment. The drumbeat of secrets grows louder. "Yes. But that love wasn't for my husband, Robert."

Blue eyes are calculating like the fox's were when he sniffed fresh fish in the trap.

"Who?"

"See you on Friday."

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Still grieving the loss of her wandering, free-spirited mother, Lucy Kincaid leaves Nashville for the faded town of Cape Hudson, Virginia. She goes to see the house she’s inherited—one she never knew existed, bequeathed to her by a woman she’s never even met. At the heart of this mystery is the hope that maybe—just maybe—this “Winter Cottage” will answer the endless questions about her mother’s past…including the identity of her birth father.

Rather than the quaint Virginian bungalow Lucy expected, Winter Cottage is a grand old estate of many shadows—big enough to hold a century of secrets, passions, and betrayals. It also comes with a handsome and enigmatic stranger, a man next in line to claim Lucy’s inheritance.

Now, as Lucy sifts through the past, uncovering the legacy of secrets that Winter Cottage holds, she’ll come to discover as much about her family history as she does about herself. In searching, she could finally find the one thing she’s never really had: a home.

MY THOUGHTS: The opening chapter of Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor drew me in, but then I felt that the book lost its way for a time, before finally getting back on track and reaching a satisfying conclusion. It all became a little confusing with the story split over two timelines and quite a large cast of characters. Each story has merit, and each could easily have stood on its own. But, in the end, the tying of the two stories together worked for me.

We have all been guilty, at one time or another, of saying nothing when we ought to have spoken up, whether it was a matter of principal or something more personal. And it is the unsaid things in family relationships that are at the centre of this mystery. That, and settling for second best.

Taylor has a lovely turn of phrase. 'Old pains bob like distant buoys.' and 'the drumbeat of secrets grows louder' are two examples that stuck in my mind.

Lucy’s character struck a chord with me, as did that of Natasha, but I thought Hank too good to be true! The plot is not predictable, in fact mostly entirely the opposite. There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader interested.

While not entirely enthralled by Winter Cottage, it intrigued me enough that I would read more by this author, and I intend to check out the books this author has written under the name of Mary Burton.

😊😊😊.5

THE AUTHOR: Mary Ellen Taylor grew up in a southern family that embraced stories of all kinds, from a well-told anecdote to a good yarn or a tall tale. It may have been inevitable that Taylor would take her storytelling heritage to new heights, moving beyond the oral tradition to become a published author.

Taylor, who finds cooking and baking to be important creative outlets, explores some of the challenges and comforts of those pursuits in her Alexandria set novels THE UNION STREET BAKERY, SWEET EXPECTATIONS, AT THE CORNER OF KING STREET and THE VIEW FROM PRINCE STREET. The novels, which explore themes of family, adoption, belonging and personal history, are influenced by her life and family. Both her grandmother and her daughter were adopted, as is Daisy McCrae, the protagonist in her first novel written as Mary Ellen Taylor, THE UNION STREET BAKERY.

Taylor was born and has spent most of her life in Richmond, but also lived in Alexandria for four years. She received her degree in English from Virginia’s Hollins University, and worked in marketing and sales before she became convinced she could write and sell one of the many stories swirling in her head. Today, twenty-eight of her romance and suspense novels and five novellas written as Mary Burton have been published, earning praise from readers and reviewers and have made her a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. THE UNION STREET BAKERY was her first novel as Mary Ellen Taylor.

When not writing or appearing at conferences and book signings, Taylor continues her culinary pursuits. She's been a kitchen assistant for more than fifty culinary classes over the past seven years at Sur la Table and earned her Baking and Pastry Arts Certificate from the University of Richmond's Culinary Arts program. In addition to spending time with her family and her three miniature dachshunds, Buddy, Bella and Tiki, Mary Ellen enjoys walking and honing her culinary skills.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Montlake Romance via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

Carrie

Rating: really liked it
Well now, I suppose it’s a good thing I took a chance on Winter Cottage since I had no idea that Mary Ellen Taylor is also known as Mary Burton who writes romantic suspense novels that I’ve read and enjoyed quite a few. Now that I’m done I can definitely see the same strong writing that pulls a reader into the story.

This story centers around Lucy Kincaid who has just lost her mother to a battle with cancer and wants to honor her mother’s last wishes of returning her ashes to her hometown of Cape Hudson, Virginia. Lucy knows nothing of her mother’s past or any extended family, it’s only been the two of them against the world her whole life as her mother chose to leave and raise Lucy on her own.

After arriving in such a small town Lucy becomes the talk of the town as she finds out that she’s been named in the will of a local resident leaving her to care for Winter Cottage. The home is a more of a sprawling mansion than a cottage and holds many secrets of the past, a past that also includes Lucy’s family lines. The home also comes with the appealing bank account holding millions for it’s upkeep so Lucy finds herself moving in and exploring her roots.

Winter Cottage is told in 3 main timelines by switching the point of view within those times. In the present of course we have Lucy but there’s also a timeline with Lucy’s mother in the late 80s and then another with the home’s original owner in the early 1900’s. This may all sound a bit confusing but it really wasn’t the changes flowed wonderfully and fit well into the present of the story. Being one that loves digging into those old family secrets I quite enjoyed the tale and would definitely recommend checking it out.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/

Amanda

Rating: really liked it
Lucy Kincaid has lost her mother Beth to Cancer, she finds out she has inherited Winter Cottage and that her mother’s last wishes were for her ashes to be taken home to Cape Hudson, Virginia. Lucy knows nothing about Beth’s earlier life as it has always been just the 2 of them.

At Winter Cottage she discovers videos that her mother Beth made of Mrs Catherine,who tells her all about her family. Why did she leave Beth the cottage rather than her own family?

Told over 3 timelines, the story flows beautifully and is very easy to follow. It is a very intriguing book full of family secrets that will keep you enthralled until the end. Characters are strong and you can emphasis with their decisions, sympathise with their heartache and want them to have a happy ending.

A must read book that will capture the heart and make you think how you’re ancestors decisions can impact you’re own lives years later.

I love books that focus on generations of a family and throw in some romance, you have me hooked!!

Would really like a sequel to Winter Cottage please!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Heidi

Rating: really liked it
Just like a Hallmark movie, this book goes down easy and you know all will be well in the end.

The book followed my favorite format— several time periods all connected by a modern-day character. I may have liked the early 20th century storyline the best (it had the best twists) because the modern storyline had a few charming, if not a tad generic, characters. (Cute but sullen child, sweet dog, neighborly citizens, hunky next door neighbor, mean drunk and...well you get the picture.)

Perfect vacation read— be it on the beach or tucked into your favorite chair.

✨ Gramy ✨

Rating: really liked it
..
Lucy Kincaid had been raised by a free-spirited mother in the bright lights of Nashville, who never provided her daughter with any details about her birth father or family members. Upon her mother's death bed, her mother presents her with a letter depicting the inheritance of a cottage located in Cape Hudson, Virginia. She travels to Cape Hudson in hopes of learning something about her mother's past and who her father was.

She finds an attorney who wants the property and is next in line to inherit if she refuses to meet the conditions of the will, a precocious girl who breaks into the cottage for refuge, and videotapes that her mother recorded in high school of the owner of the cottage.

Amazon Review: "This is the telling of three women's lives. Three generations, all intertwined. At her mother's death bed, Lucy learns that everything she thought she knew about her mother and self is a lie. She goes to Virginia to claim the home, Winter Cottage, a stranger has left to her. Told in three voices, you find out who Clare, Beth, and Lucy are; as necessary secrets become exposed. At first, the switching of voices and time periods is a little confusing. Hang in there. It is worth the wait. Beautifully told, Winter Cottage is a tale of secrets, passions, abuse, sacrifices and unconditional love."

The story does move a bit slowly and a bit confusing with so many points of view and time frames. It took a while for this reader to sort out who was who and in which era they belonged to. Will the possibility of a permanent residence, a love interest, and a family entice her to adhere to the conditions of the will?

This was a clean and wholesome tale that does deliver a H.E.A.


.

.
** SPOILER **




Review by Bobbie: " But there are things I didn’t like, too, hence the 4 stars instead of 5. 1. I prefer a story told in forward progression. Flashbacks are one thing, but going back and forth is draining. 2. Beth, the middle and more of a bridge between Claire and Lucy, is told in present tense and I kept wanting to read it like the other parts. 3. I think Hank should have descended from Claire and Robert, not Victoria but still next in line. After Victoria leaves Winter Cottage and marries Edward Garrison that should have been the end of her which basically it was except for one tiny mention that she (Victoria) lived a long life. 4. I really wish Claire and Jimmy would have had more time together after – well you’ll have to read the story to find out ‘after’ what."

Melissa

Rating: really liked it
This book was not bad, but it lacks all of the traits that would have made it a really good one. It was so bland.

There were way too many characters and at times it became hard to remember how they all fit in the story and who they are related to. I ended up just not caring about any of the characters at all. None of their emotions came across as fitting or genuine either.

Certain pieces of information revealed during the course of the book are revealed in such a manner that they are supposed to be plot twists but they really aren't as you can guess the plot right from the beginning of the book.

The narration of the audio book was off-putting. The accents used were distracting from the story and made the protagonist seem ditsy.

My final gripe : In the event that you find a box of old video recordings, made by your now dead mother, and you miss her and care about her as much as you profess to do, you will binge watch that shit! You won't spread it out over a couple of days.

Al Sevcik

Rating: really liked it
Confession: I stopped reading half way through. I am amazed at the many 4-star and 5-star reviews on GoodReads. Sorry folks, but it’s a boring book that reads as if it were written by an unimaginative high schooler. I lost count of the number of times the author told me that the “wind blew outside” — of course it blew outside. Where else would it blow? That’s an example. The book is full of such careless writing. It’s also extremely wordy. Chapters of rambling conversation between actual happenings. I give it 2 stars.

Elizabeth

Rating: really liked it
This book hit almost all the marks for me. I love books that mix the past with the present and "Winter Cottage" definitely provided me with a wonderful read! I have never read any books by this author and will definitely be seeking more books written by her in the future.

The story is fairly simple. Girl's mother dies, she finds that mom had inherited a cottage near the Chesapeake Bay. Girl goes because she hopes to find her father there. The simplicity ends there. Lucy, the primary character, finds more questions than answers. She also discovers a lot more. But the reader should discover that! I loved the story and the characters! The reason for the one star is that I kept getting confused with the names and dates. That may be just a "me" thing, but it put me off just a bit.

Thank you to NetGalley and Montlake Romance for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

Cassie’s Reviews

Rating: really liked it
Winter cottage is a beautifully written book about different generations of people with a house in cape Hudson. Lucy inherited the cottage which was not a cottage at all from a woman she had never met before . The only link she had was her recently deceased mother. With nowhere else to go she heads to the cottage to dig for answers. The cottage comes with conditions Lucy has to live there for a month and all the money is to go to renovations towards the house . It seems like she’s not the only person interested in the house as well. The story was amazing and I was eagerly turning the pages and I loved so many characters in this book!

Melanie

Rating: really liked it
I'm not sure why I'm in the minority here (most everyone else seems to love this book), but I struggled with everything from the obvious plot line to the clunky dialogue and undeveloped characters. I alternated listening to the audio version and reading, and both were not very good (the audio narrator is terrible, terrible - overexaggerating accents and emphasizing words out of place). The characters were so one dimensional it was hard to even care what happened to any of them.

Leah

Rating: really liked it
This was pretty good but not quite what I expected based on the description and I had a few issues with it. The story as a whole was sweet and just a bit sad. I enjoyed how everything that happened in the past came together in the end, although not everyone had a happy ending.

Keep reading my lengthy (too lengthy, oops) review for a more in depth rant review/summary of my experience with this book.

The chapters in the book alternate between three time periods; basically three plotlines. Don't worry, it works. There is Lucy (2018), her mother Beth (1988), and Claire (1916-17). Claire's content covered the longest period of time and, to me, included the most interesting parts of this book. I found myself feeling for the people in her life with every misfortune, but at the same time I felt they all at least somewhat deserved everything that happened to them as they had all made huge impulsive decisions. Young Claire's story could've been a book all on its own, but I would've liked a slightly more satisfying ending.

Beth's story was mostly just a filler to me, and didn't provide much more information than the rest. Without revealing too much, it was a good way to pass on long lost secrets to another generation.

Lucy's story was the main one based on the description, and the one that everyone else's tied into. But the vast majority of it took place over five days. WAY too much happened in five days. It only felt like longer because events in her life are separated by events from the other time periods. I was kind of left unable to ignore my disbelief at how much was supposed to have happened to Lucy in that amount of time. (view spoiler)[She inherits a huge house, takes in a little girl who has an abusive father and broke into the house one night, human remains are found under her driveway, she has a service for her dead mother, sleeps with Hank after knowing him for 4 days and hardly interacting with him, finds out who her father is and that she and the girl are half sisters, and watches something like 15 hours of videos to uncover the history of the house and the reason behind her inheritance (hide spoiler)] I was also disappointed by the lack of love or romance in her story. While it was refreshingly not ALL about the romance and sex, it was instead hardly about the romance at all. Hank, the "handsome and enigmatic stranger" from the description, played a pretty small role overall and his relationship with Lucy seemed kind of forced by the author. Like maybe she wrote the description before she wrote the whole book and her ideas changed along the way and then she threw in that relationship to avoid changing the description. It just didn't fit. There was really nothing significant between them right up to and after they suddenly slept together. (Actually, most of the time that's how it was when characters in this book slept together.)

Maybe I'm just feeling extra picky, but I spent enough time looking back at the family tree (thank goodness for that because stuff could be confusing) and other parts of the book to get things straight, to notice a few small things that I probably let get to me more than most people. A few of the things characters said didn't quite line up with dates stated throughout. This could've been an attempt to make their recollection seem realistic - people might over or under estimate when talking about how long ago something happened - but I can't help it... I like for everything to line up right and could only see these things as mistakes. Another small thing that had me confused was that Lucy's room was the pink room at the end of the hall, Natasha stayed in the blue one next to hers (said to be adjoining too, for clarity), and then Hank stayed in the yellow room which was said to be connected to the pink room. If this is a normal hallway we're talking about, and it doesn't seem either of the rooms are across the hall from the pink one, something has to be wrong. On to the tiny thing, early on in the book Lucy puts her car "in gear" before turning the key. I don't care what kind of car it is, no wonder it didn't start. Lastly, at one point Claire's "womb tightened with desire". What?? Her uterus tightened with desire?? That's a new one.

Ok, petty complaints aside, I still had a good time reading this. The story was captivating (albeit relatively predictable) and kept me reading. The writing style maybe isn't as descriptive as I prefer most (especially when it comes to the characters' expressions and emotions) but it was fairly well written. I think it would've been better as just a more elaborate version of Claire's story (as unoriginal as that would be), but despite the discrepancies I listed I still think the author pulled off mixing stories from multiple generations, and I would still recommend it.

Joan Schulhafer

Rating: really liked it
Mary Ellen Taylor is back! Or will be at the end of August 2018. I work with Mary Ellen and have had the opportunity to read an early version. If you enjoyed Mary Ellen Taylor's previous books (The Union Street Baker, etc.) as much as I did, you won't want to miss this. It is not connected to her earlier Alexandria books, so don't expect more about the McCraes--though I miss them, too. It's a wonderful blend of disparate lives, past and present, capturing the rhythms of Virginia's eastern shore, and the push and pull of the ties that bind---the ties that make home, home. 8/10/18 NOTE: Pub day is now a little later--October 16, 2018.

Susan

Rating: really liked it
Great, exciting read! Enjoyed it!