The Nantucket Restaurant Series, Book 1
From the publisher:
Three sisters. An inherited Nantucket restaurant. One year before they can sell.
Mandy, Emma and Jill are as close as three sisters who live hundreds of miles apart can be. They grew up together on Nantucket, but Mandy is the only one that stayed.
Jill lives a glamorous life in Manhattan as a co-owner of a successful executive search firm. Never married, she is in her mid-thirties and lives in a stunning, corner condo with breathtaking views of the city and Hudson river. Everyone thinks there’s something going on with her partner, Billy, because as a workaholic, she spends more time with him than anyone else. But there’s never been anything but friendship between them and Billy loves being a bachelor in NYC.
Emma lives in Arizona and is an elementary school teacher and an aspiring photographer. She met her college professor husband, Peter, in grad school and they’ve been married for almost thirteen years. In recent years, she’s noticed that Peter has grown distant. But when he shares a surprising secret, she doesn’t see it coming and her world is turned upside down.
Mandy followed her high school boyfriend, Cory to Boston College, and right after graduation, they married and settled in Dover, just outside of Boston. Cory joined a successful hedge fund, while Mandy took a job at a downtown financial services firm as an administrative assistant. She quit a year later, when Blake, the first baby came. Two years later, when Brooke was born, Cory left to open a competing Hedge Fund and they moved home to Nantucket. Now that the children are older, Mandy has more free time and is eager to do more than just volunteer with local charity events. But Cory doesn’t want her to work. He thinks it doesn’t reflect well on him and appearances are everything to Cory. Though when Mandy finds a second cell phone in his gym bag, she begins to question what is really going on.
When their beloved grandmother, Rose Ferguson passes peacefully in her sleep a week before her ninety-ninth birthday she leaves them quite a surprise. In addition to her Nantucket home, they learned that she was the silent owner of Mimi’s Place, one of Nantucket’s most popular year-round restaurants. There is of course, a catch–she left the restaurant equally to Mandy, Emma, and Jill–and also to Paul, the chef for the past twelve years. And before they can sell, all three girls need to work at the restaurant for a period of one year–or else their shares will go to Paul–who was also Emma’s first love. Three sisters inherit a Nantucket restaurant and must work together for a year–or lose their shares to the chef. Paul was Emma’s first love, and now he’s their business partner.
I have never seen such a long, thorough synopsis as the one the publisher provides for this book (which led me to believe it was self published, and yes.) So I don’t really need to summarize the plot. I will say there was no cell phone in the gym bag, but there was a receipt for one – same difference, same results. You know what it means when a wife finds a second cell phone, and it is never anything good.
These three sisters get along amazingly well, lucky lucky siblings. Growing up on Nantucket, they never knew their grandmother owned their favorite restaurant, or really anything about her life. I think most kids don’t know much about their grandparents, so I found that pretty easy to believe. The fact that she was matchmaking from beyond the grave, also believable. And that two sisters are having marital problems at the same time, again believable. I am crediting all this believability to the author, she does a really good job here of introducing three complicated characters, and had me completely immersed in their stories from the get go. The fact that the plot revolves around a restaurant was just gravy! Plus it’s a pretty short book,, so kudos for developing so many characters in a short space.
This was a good read, very entertaining and for those who care, no sex. But implied sex, so a step above (and more believable) than other sweet romances like those from Debbie Macomber.
The next book in this series is Christmas at the Restaurant, which falls nicely into the ever popular Christmas in July summer extravaganza. It was not meant for that, but it’s how it fell into my lap. So be it. Check back for a review shortly.
7/2021 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
THE RESTAURANT by Pamela Kelley. Piping Plover Press (May 16, 2020). ISBN: 978-0991243563. 280 pages.
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There seem to be a lot of Nantucket stories this summer. Maybe every summer but I didn’t notice. Sounds like a place I’d like to visit.
Me too! Maybe someday