Review: The Long Way Home

Title: The Long Way Home

Author: Mariah Stewart

Publisher:  Ballantine Books

Genre: Contemporary romance

Length: 432 pages

Reviewer: Storm

Review rating: 4.5 LIGHTNING BOLTS


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 fiance, 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:  Think of a place, a quiet little town that's quaint, one you've come to know in your mind...I'm talking about the town in Mariah Stewart's Chesapeake Diaries Series- St. Dennis. It's a place that many have come to, or come back to, and it turns into a place of refuge, a second chance at happiness, and where dreams come true...

The same promise holds true for The Long Way Home. This time we meet Ellie. Though she has lived the privileged life, Ellie is certainly no stranger to heartache and loss.  But now, she's truly lost everything, stunned by betrayal, and it sends her into hiding for awhile. The last thing Ellie ever expects to find in St. Dennis is a life she could learn to be comfortable with, and least of all, love.  She begins to restore a house she inherited and discovers many hidden secrets within the walls of the house, and from those in the town that have loved the house, and loved the people that lived in it.

Cameron has his own share of heartache, and he's not too happy that someone has the house of his dreams.  Talk about refuge, that house sure has a lot of meaning to him. But as he spends time with Ellie, he begins to have feelings he'd never expected.

In the book, we catch up with a few past characters that have had their happily ever afters in previous books in this series, and it's always nice to see how they are doing. St. Dennis is like one big happy family. Everyone watches out for one another, it's a tight knit community that you don't find often these days. I find myself wishing that I had a town like this to belong to. Visiting St. Dennis is like stepping into a different world.

Ms. Stewart takes time with her characters. Everything from their heartache, to their quirks and so much more. These characters bring the pages to life. The Long Way Home is an emotionally engaging read, filled with a little mystery, a blossoming romance, and a few surprises that I never saw coming.  Contemporary romance fans will devour the latest installment set in the beautiful town we've come to know and love in the past few years. Don't take too long in finding The Long Way Home!


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