This is the first book in the Catalina Cove series by Brenda Jackson. I am going to be doing a binge listen to this series as the fourth book in this series just came out and I want to read/listen to them in order. Catalina Cove is a small community by the Gulf of Mexico not too far from New Orleans. It is a community that wants to keep its small town coziness and doesn't want large scale businesses or resorts to spoil that. This is bad news for Vashti Alcindor, who is hoping for a quick sale of the B & B she inherited from her aunt, as she has no desire to move back to the Cove. When the sale to a developer is blocked by the town council, she is made an offer she can't refuse from one of the town's businessmen to come back, renovate and run the B & B herself.

I enjoyed this story a lot, but be warned, there are some sexually explicit scenes that I did fast forward through. Vashti left Catalina Cove after teen pregnancy left her childless and heartbroken. She returns with trepidation and secrets. Meeting Sawyer Grisham on the way into town, when he stops her and gives her a speeding ticket, she feels something for him that she is not sure of. I liked the characters in this story. The residents of Catalina Cove are small town and are in each other's business, but they welcome Vashti back. Both Vashti and Sawyer have some baggage that they need to get over if they want to move forward with a relationship. I really liked Sawyer's daughter as well, she brings that fresh teenager outlook on life. There are a lot of twists in this story and secrets from the past that come to light to force Vashti and Sawyer to make decisions. This is a story of secrets, of snobbery and class status, of friendship, love and acceptance. This is a second chance for Vashti, that I was very happy with, but I did figure it out part way through the story. Overall, a good story that I enjoyed.

I loved this one very much. It felt more grown up with adults that were adults with jobs/careers and lives that were not so great. Past or present. Heartfelt. Betrayal. Loss. Reunion. Confusion. Love. Truth.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to review this book and to be an early reader via NetGalley! However, I will not be writing a review for this title at this time, as my reading preferences have since changed somewhat. In the event that I decide to review the book in the future, I will make sure to purchase a copy for myself or borrow it from a library. Once again, thank you so much for providing me with early access to this title. I truly appreciate it. Please feel free to contact me with any follow-up questions or concerns.

Finished this soapy romance novel yesterday and omg, I didn’t realize what I was getting into. The romance stuff was sweet and sexy but there is an entire other story as well with teen pregnancy and family secrets that really kept me listening. This was my first Brenda Jackson book and I can understand why she’s such a wildly popular author.

Unfortunately I'm having a hard time clicking with this book, so it's a DNF @ 20% for me. Catalina Cove is a charming place, and I like Vashti quite a bit, and my heart goes out to her after what she went through as a teenager. However, her love interest Sawyer is downright boring. Their chemistry is flat and forced. Frankly, I don't want Vashti to end up with him, so I'm abandoning the book early. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this title.

Catalina Cove is a new series by Brenda Jacksonand from book one Love in Catalina Cove I am truly hooked!

Vashti Alcindor Loved Catalina Cove, but the place held pain, secrets that kept her away even after the death of the one person she loved the most could not bring her back until now.Now home again to sell Shelby by the Sea the B and B
that was left to Vashti, she now remembers why she loved Catalina Cove. Will it be enough to keep her?

Sawyer Grisham is the new sheriff of Catalina Cove, a widower who needed to give his daughter and well as himself a change after the death of his wife, so when Sawyer was offered a job was open as the Sheriff of Catalina Cove Sawyer pounced on it.

Sawyer and Vashti heat things up pretty quickly their passion for each other is a insight at how passionate these characters are, but their hearts, honesty and passion for life is what drew me in. Their lives are about to change in so many ways as the secrets of the past unravel for them, for the people they love, for the people who have come into their lives.

The people of Love in Catalina Cove are amazing, fun and a bit like what you would think a tight knit town would be full of including the gossip. It was a joy to be on the being of these characters and this series. Bryce, Keegan, Ray friends of Sawyer and Vashti all gave a great level of support. Jade (Sawyers daughter) kept things young and fresh. Reid the towns wealthiest person as well as the people who will come into all their lives all helped share what the meaning of what family truly means to the ones who grace our lives.

Love in Catalina Cove is the first book in the Catalina Cove Series by the amazing Brenda Jackson. Her characters are very engaging, the setting and description were amazing. The heart of the Cove and it’s meaning and history you get after the first chapter. I want to check into Shelby by the Sea myself.

Rated 5 Stilettos by Deb!

DNF at 20%.

It might be a case of "it's not you, it's me" because most of my friends loved it but I've been trying since last year with this book and I just can't get into it. Sad to give it a pass because I really liked the premise.

Brenda Jackson is an excellent romance writer. In Love in Catalina Cove, Vashti Alcindor, returns to Catalina Cove after inheriting a bed and breakfast from her aunt even after vowing to never return. Vasti is a broken woman due to fertility issues. Her inherited bed and breakfast, needs lots of updates and repairs. With the help of interested investor, she is able to throw herself into renovating and operating a very profitable business. Along with the renew interest in her new location and occupation is a promise of love. When family secrets and betrayals are revealed, Vashti is almost pulled back into the dark depression that plagued her in the past. Yet, she had the love of Sawyer to pull her through. This book is a page-turner full of romance, drama and suspense.

Unfortunately, I don't have too many fantastic things to say about this novel. I love a good romance, but I felt like this one was a little too cliche and forced. It was extremely predictable and didn't leave me wanting more. It started out interesting, but as I read more and more the conversations seemed so awkward and not very realistic. I would definitely give another book from Brenda Jackson a shot, but this one wasn't for me. Thank you to NetGalley and HQN for sending this novel in exchange for an honest review.

2/5

Vashti Alcindor has returned to Catalina Cove to fix up her inheritance of a bed and breakfast and get back out of town fast. Fate has a way of intervening and she meets her old boyfriend Sawyer who let her down many years earlier. This is book 1 in a new series by Brenda Jackson and it's a great start to this new town and new characters. When Vashti learns the truth about what happened when she was young it puts a whole new light on the past and her new relationship with Sawyer. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In Brenda Jackson's Love in Catalina Cove's, the first installment in the Catalina Cove contemporary romance series, this love story would sweep you off your feet and carry out away with the store. At age sixteen,Vashti Alcindor had gotten pregnant and kept the secrecy of who fathered her baby. She was told she had lost her son after birth. Now as a grown divorced woman who works in New York City, she received the call from her best friend Bryce that her aunt's inn was in disrepair and it needs to be sold. She flew to Catalina Cove in New Orleans and sped away in a Corvette to her former hometown. SThat's when she ran into Sheriff Sawyer Grisham, a widower with a teenage daughter, who pulled her off and gave her a ticket. At that first meeting, sparks fly across the sky between them, and they later had a casual relationship with each other. Vashti had plans to sell her aunt's inn and return to New York, but for Sawyer, he had convinced her otherwise before she left at the airport. It took her awhile for her to agree to it. And when she returned, she visited Ms. Gertie, a woman with dementia, and a midwife in her community, who knew a secret about her past: her parents lied to her about everything, when they had outright denied it. It began to question her more as she hired a PI to get to the truth, while she made plans to restore her aunt's inn in good shape and to stay in Catalina Cove. The relationship between Vashti and Sawyer had became exclusive, when she later discovered the truth about the baby that she unknowingly gave up for adoption had a surprising twist or two in the end.

This book had all the making of a book I would love but it really fell flat on the romance front. It also suffered from a case of trying to be too many things. I love the idea of a woman with a past returning home and refurbishing a family business. I started out liking Vashti but that faded. The main problem I had with this book was that the romance felt forced and a little juvenile. To be fair I don’t read a whole lot of romance books but there have been a few recently that I have loved. The book had a great setting and a fantastic set up supporting characters. The relationship between Sawyer and his daughter Jade was well done and I liked that. The book is also well written. But I just couldn’t get into it. There were a few twists in the story that I found to be pretty unbelievable, and that I also saw coming from pretty close to the beginning. Also, the way that Vashti acted seemed really juvenile to me a couple times which really turned me off from the book.

Available now: Love in Catalina Cove by Brenda Jackson
**** 4 stars - Loved it!: A quick-reading fiction that you won't be embarrassed to read in public.



Recommended readers:

If you like modern fiction
If you like coastal small town settings
Here's my Rankings:

4/5 for characters
4/5 for plot
4/5 overall
REVIEW FROM BOOKS FOR HER:
Vashti Alcindor left her small coastal Louisiana hometown as soon as she could to build a life and career away from her past. But when you favorite aunt dies and leaves her a Bed and Breakfast, she has no choice but to return. Only she finds more than she plans on her return, which forces her to dig even deeper into her past.

If you're looking for a good fiction with some romance - that you won't be embarrassed to read in public with its tasteful cover - Love in Catalina Cove by Brenda Jackson is excellent. There's everything to love about this small town and it's characters - and you'll even enjoy some twists throughout. It's another great Brenda Jackson fiction and the start of the Catalina Cove Series, which I'm looking forward to reading
Available now: Love in Catalina Cove by Brenda Jackson

Title: Love in Catalina Cove
Author: Brenda Jackson
Genre: Romance, fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Vashti left Catalina Cove Louisiana over ten years ago after a teen pregnancy left her heartbroken and childless. She never had any desire to return. But with the death of her aunt and an inheritance of her beloved B & B, Vashti returns. And immediately gets a speeding ticket from Sheriff Sawyer Grisham.

Some things never change in Catalina Cove, but Vashti discovers that some things have changed. Despite that, she’s determined to leave the cove behind her for good. Until fate—and an unexpected benefactor—intervene, and she finds herself restoring the old B & B to its former glory, so she can run it.

When the biggest secret of her life comes to light, Vashi discovers that thing she thought to be true aren’t—and unimaginable change lies in their wake. And Sawyer and his daughter are right there beside her. Will she be able to face her new future, or will the past continue to haunt her?

I probably picked this up because it’s set near New Orleans, a city I love. I’m not sure if I’ve ever read any of Brenda Jackson’s books before, but I enjoyed this book a lot, and I’m interested to read the rest of the Catalina Cove series. Vashti was an interesting character, but I liked how honest she was with herself. I did see the “big” surprises coming, but they were handled very well, regardless, and I read this straight through in one sitting.
Brenda Jackson is a bestselling and award-winning author. Love in Catalina Cove is her newest novel, the first in the Catalina Cove series.

(Galley provided by Harlequin in exchange for an honest review.)

This book was a bit hard to get into and I didn’t really hold my attention. Since the secrets were told earlier in the story, it made the book seem to go on forever. I think this would have been better in a shorter form.
I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two main characters and a romance is all about the chemistry.
Overall, I just didn’t love this one.

Full review will be posted on https://wickedcoolflight.net on 9 November, 2018
Brenda Jackson is one of my auto reads and I was really excited to see she was bringing us a new series. She has a great way of weaving everyone's stories together when she does a series, so I love starting with the first in her series. All of her books can be read as standalones, but it pays off to read them in order.
I started this one and it was a little slow to get into, but about half way through it really picks up and I wasn't able to put it down. I love the little town of Catalina Cove and all the crazy personalities in the small quiet town. Their ideas of keeping it small town is really great.
The story of Vashti and Sawyer is a good one. Her story makes any girl hungry for a happy ending cry because Vashti has been through, the proverbial, romance wringer. She’s been chewed up and spit out and her confidence in romance is nonexistent. Sawyer on the other hand, could care less about romance when he meets Vashti, but he comes around real fast. So fast he’s ready to hop a plane to NY City to see her. I love that, who doesn’t want some to fly across the country to profess his interest? So it begins, but it ends in Catalina Cove where there are some hard lessons learned about family and how far they can go to protect their reputation and image, and how to be something different than your parents want you to be. Vashti and Sawyer both learn some hard lessons by their HEA. Brenda brings her trade mark twists and turns as usual and they actually make the story better. Usually they just add to it, but these twists really are the story.
I'm giving this a 4 of 5 because although the story had twists that I didn't see coming, I really felt Sawyer was too good to be true and wasn't real enough in his mistakes with Vashti, also I felt the twists were too much of the story and if they weren’t there, the romance was too slow and not moving enough. I actually can’t wait to see what she has for us in the next in the series because I know we will get to see this family’s development along with a new couple.

Love in Catalina Cove is the first book in a new series--and wow, the location is fantastic! Sand, sun, blueberries (in muffins or not)...really, I'm not sure what more I could ask for ;)

Vashti and Sawyer's romance is a somewhat slow-moving one--she's been burned before and is very hesitant (read: she's not going to do it, ever) to enter into anything permanent again, and he's a widower who hasn't dated since his wife's death--so though they do both feel a pull toward each other pretty much from the first time they meet, there's a lot of back-and-forth and hot-and-cold to get through before they let themselves be together, and at times it's a little frustrating. Ultimately, their story is very sweet--though there are quite a few plot twists along the way (the characters don't see them coming, but readers probably will) that rely on some pretty big coincidences.

All's well that ends well, though, and there are HEAs all around here. It'll be fun to see what the characters from this story are up to in future series books.

Now--can I take a vacation to Catalina Cove? I hear Shelby by the Sea is a nice B&B to try... ;)

Rating: 3 1/2 stars / B-

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

In this first book in her new Catalina Cove series, Brenda Jackson introduces readers to the residents of Catalina Cove, Louisiana with a sexy, heart-tugging tale that kept me turning pages from beginning to end. Vashti and Sawyer have chemistry off the charts and I was invested in their journey from the moment they met...as he was writing her a ticket for speeding. Their relationship takes a while to heat up but once it does these two set the sheets on fire. However, while I certainly enjoyed their physical journey, it's their emotional journey that had my heart yearning for both of these strong, and honorable, characters to find their happiness. Jackson doesn't make it easy for them, especially with Vashti's mistrust of men and relationships, understandable once her past is revealed, and widowed, single-dad Sawyer having no intention of marrying again. Both characters are caught off guard by the deepening physical and emotional bond growing between them but as secrets are revealed, and the story twists and turns, Sawyer and Vashti will have some difficult truths to face, and forgiveness to find, if they have any hope of moving beyond the past and forging a future together. Some of those secrets are almost insurmountable, and I'll admit, there are actions of some (secondary) characters that I'm not sure I'd have been able to forgive.

Jackson creates a real sense of community in this book and populates Catalina Cove with some very intriguing characters, dropping hints of future stories along the way. There's a future hero with amnesia (Forget Me Not - March 2019) and former best friends with a secret in their past who are ripe for an enemies to lovers story. I'm on board for both!

The characters in this book are skillfully portrayed, realistically flawed, and vivid enough that I would fully expect to meet them in the local cafe or at Vashti's inn were I to travel to Catalina Cove. One of my favorites is Sawyer's romance novel loving, teen daughter, Jade. She has such a great relationship with her dad and is very likable in her own right. I'm hopeful we'll see more of her, as well as Sawyer and Vashti, in future books.

Vashti’s life has been a rocky one. At sixteen she got pregnant but she never admitted who the father was, which was enough for the little town of Catalina Cove to be against her. To protect her, her parents took her to a home for unwed mothers and left her there alone until the baby was born. Only to die a few hours after being delivered. Later on in life, Vashti got married to Scott only to be cheated on. Now, at the age of thirty-two, with her divorce finalized, she’s inheriting her aunt’s B&B in Catalina Cove. After being so mistreated in that town, there’s no way she’s coming back there, so selling the B&B seems to be the only way to go.

But she can’t because the town doesn’t want her too. With that, she has no other way than to come back to Catalina Cove and reopen the B&B. Back in her hometown, she finds herself drawn to Sawyer, the Sherriff, in inexplicable ways.

Gotta be honest, this is not my favorite book of Brenda Jackson. And here’s why: the sex scenes sounded a little forced. It’s not the worst thing ever but I feel like they don’t sound very real. Their attraction is something they never experienced before; so strong and new and as I already said, inexplicable, so I was expecting something a little bit better.

On the bright side, I loved loved loved the storyline. There are a lot of secrets that you never even imagined were a possibility. For real, when you think you have it all figured out already, trust me, you haven’t because there’s still something that you haven’t found out yet! And the thing is, as unbelievable as that sounds, the story is not farfetched at all! It all makes sense and honestly, given what I see in the news nowadays, it is really close to reality.

This is a really character-focused kind of book, Ashti being the main character in this story. We get to see a lot of her pain, especially about the baby that she lost before she could even meet. We also get to see her struggle in starting a new relationship after the most important ones in her life went down so bad.

Overall, I’m not too fond of the writing style in this one, even though the storyline is actually quite good!

When Vashti Alcindor was 16 she got pregnant while living in Catalina Cove. Her parents and the whole town seemed to be against her. Her parents forced her to leave Catalina Cove and go to a home for wayward girls until she gave birth. After giving birth she returned to Catalina Cove and lived with her aunt at her B&B. Because she would never reveal who the father of her baby was she suffered through much rejection by the town. Once she reached college age she left Catalina Cove and vowed she would never return. Her aunt died and left her the B&B. Vachti returns to Catalina Cove in order to sell the B&B. While there she gets pulled over for speeding by Sheriff Sawyer Grisham. There are immediate sparks between the two. But because of past disappointing relationships Vashti says she is done committing to any type of relationship. But she and Sawyer find it hard to ignore those feelings and finally give in. She becomes close to Sawyer and his teenage daughter Jade. Vashti will learn some devastating news that will change her life as well as Sawyer's.