I have spent most of my day reading this and after finishing it I will say that it was time well spent. I loved falling into this cute contemporary book. Normally I would find it hard to get into each character being that there is three perspectives in the book but after a bit I got the hang of each character and eventually loved seeing how everything was with that. There was clearly tension between Olivia and Caitlin but while Olivia was unsure why you get Caitlin's POV and seeing why she was like that. Then there was the mother to Olivia who was injured and has her own things going on that I wouldn't have know more about if it wasn't for getting to see what was going on though her perspective. Then there was the bit of romance that Olivia was getting during her stay while she helps out where she is needed. This was a pretty great book and if you are looking for an escape you might want to pick this book up because I found myself really enjoying this book and think you readers might be interested in this book too.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing, Netgalley, and HQN Books for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I think that Thayne may be another of my favorite authors, because there hasn’t been a book that I’ve read by her that I didn’t like in some shape or form. It’s been pretty positive so far, and even though I may not be a sucker for romance novels all the time, I’ve been able to let this frozen heart of mine thaw out a bit and sigh a bit after finishing the story I get to read.

Whenever there is a book about a female character living the life that she always dreamed of, but finding that it wasn’t as cracked up to be as she thought it would be, it literally hurts my soul and makes me question whether or not I really think my dream life will live up to my expectations. It seems to be so much more common that while we think we know what we want – and maybe we really do – there are probably some aspects that will play out in a totally different way to what we need in life to grow.

I feel like this book also spoke to me on a more personal level because I have really been avoiding going back home, like to permanently live. Maybe because I haven’t had some good experiences growing up, and I feel like that was a lot of my own fault back then, but I just feel like I don’t know if I could go back home unless it was an absolute emergency, like Olivia’s case was. Granted, I wouldn’t want to wait until something happened to my mother to move back home and help take care of her, but it makes me wonder if that would be the catalyst for me to go home sometimes.

I love when books can bring me back to my own reality, when I’ve been in the fantasy world too long. I’ve think I mentioned that books like these really help cleanse my palate when I need a little break from the constant “having to save the world because humans messed up” thing or just having to really think about the world-building and the magic system that I have in other books. I think that Thayne has been doing such a great job with her books lately – at least from when I first started reading her novels – and I look forward to reading more of her romance novels.

I absolutely love Thayne's Haven Point series so whenever she ventures away from there I get a bit nervous. But no matter where the book is set Thayne never fails to deliver a cozy read with a fully formed community and this was no exception. Unlike a typical romance this book is more of an ensemble cast with multiple characters getting page time. It does help flesh out the community feel but these characters have ISSUES and those issues can get a bit overwhelming. As well because the characters are so closely connected it can get a bit repetitive as we explore each character's issues from multiple perspectives. And because of all the issues the three main characters - Olivia, Juliet, and Caitlin - can be a lot prickly and at times hard to like.



Now that sounds pretty negative but I don't mean it to be. Despite the issues that kept me from falling head over heels in love with the book I did still really enjoy it. As I mentioned before Thayne is incredibly dependable and always delivers a lovely read. The book was so readable and always one that I fell into the story as soon as I picked the book up. Even when the character were being extra prickly there's still a lot of heart and as the book progresses you grow to care about the characters even if you don't always like them. And of course it wraps up in a way that left me with a full heart and a smile.

Olivia has left her busy life to come home to Cape Sanctuary to help her mother Juliet recover from an accident. She is only going to stay a few days while her mother has surgery and then head home. What she doesn’t plan on is her mother’s long recovery and her ties to her home town.

Caitlin is a teenager girl who lives with her grandmother Juliet. Her own mother died when she was just a baby and she is longing to find her father by reading through her mother and aunts journals she found. How can she face her aunt after reading how she felt about her mother all those years ago.

Juliet fell off a ladder at the garden center she owns and now needs surgery. How can she sit still and let her daughter Olivia run the center when she knows Olivia doesn’t even want to be there? And what about Caitlin? She has been acting odd and maybe she is just scared her grandmother got hurt. Juliet is also hiding something from her family. Should she tell them or try to keep hiding?

I loved the story of these three independent women who are now thrown together again under one roof and need to come to terms with their relationships with their families and friends. They have to heal old wounds and open up to each other in order to mend their relationships. It was brilliantly written by RaeAnne Thayne and you felt drawn to each character in the story. Thank you so much to Ms. Thayne, Harlequin and NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book to read and review.

I've been reading RaeAnne Thayne's books since 2007 and she hasn't disappointed me yet. Whether it's contemporary romance or women's fiction, on a western cattle ranch or in a small, coastal California town, her characters always hold my attention and touch my heart.

In The Sea Glass Cottage, Thayne introduces readers to three generations of Harper women, all negotiating the emotional quagmire that the complications of life sometimes generate. They're not always easy to like, or understand, but their flaws make them all the more real and their growth all the more satisfying. The tangled complexity of their family secrets creates a compelling story that kept me engaged from beginning to end and wondering at several points just how, or if, Thayne would be able to not only bring love and happiness to each of them individually but also bring them together again as a family. She does, of course, but not without one heck of an emotional roller coaster ride first. I enjoyed every bit of it. I also enjoyed the three men (two men and a teen, actually), worthy heroes all, who each factor significantly in the lives of the Harper women. I'd happily take any one of them were I Liv, Caitlin, or Juliet.

If you're in the mood for a story of family secrets, grief, hope, second chances, romance, forgiveness, and love that will engage your emotions and deliver a satisfying happily ever after, I recommend RaeAnne Thayne's The Sea Glass Cottage.

4.5 stars
*ARC received from publisher. All opinions are unbiased and my own.

The Sea Glass Cottage ended up being a pleasant surprise. I ended up really enjoying the story of a broken family with secrets. Olivia heads back to her hometown to help care for her mother who broke her hip after falling off a ladder. She is met with a cold shoulder from her niece, a business she knows nothing about and a potential romance.

The story is told through several points of view. At times, I felt like this made things a .little repetitive. I mean how many times did I have to be reminded the Melody's soon to be ex-husband was a douchebag cheater who deserves to die a slow horrible death? Having said that, along with Olivia's story, we also get her mother Juliet's storyline as well as her niece, Caitlin's search for her birth father. Of the three, I enjoyed Juliet's the most. Her friendship/ love story with Henry was so sweet. I was cheering them on the entire book! I'm not sure if this is a stand alone or will be a part of a series. I would love to peek into the future and see what happens to an adult Caitlin and Jake! I do recommend this sweet and healing story about how love and honesty can help to heal family wounds.

One of the great things about being part of, let’s call it pre-Millennial Generation is that all of our youthful embarrassments and peccadilloes were thankfully NOT recorded and posted on the interwebs for all to see – and for all to resurrect from the dusty vaults of the Internet Archive or the Wayback Machine if we become even semi-famous, whether accidentally or on purpose.

However, some of us wrote in diaries made out of dead-tree stuff. In other words, paper. And paper is a fantastic way of preserving the thoughts and feelings of the past – whether those thoughts and feelings deserve preservation or not.

The things that Olivia Harper and her late sister Natalie wrote in their high school diaries creep out of the dusty past to bedevil and haunt not just the still-surviving – and still wounded – Olivia after all these years, but also Natalie’s daughter Caitlin, now 15 and searching for the baby daddy that her mother never revealed to a soul. Not her daughter, not her mother, not her sister, not her best friend – not even the baby daddy himself.

There’s also a feeling that this story is about self-protection and self-preservation, especially of the variety where we lie to someone in a way that is supposed to protect them, but is really all about covering our own broken places and protecting ourselves.

At the heart of this story, of the Sea Glass Cottage itself, is a circle of those kinds of social – and emotionally distancing – lies.

Olivia’s ability to continue telling herself she is absolutely fine is shaken when she witnesses a senseless attack in her favorite coffee shop. Her emotional and physical distance from her mother is shattered when her mother’s fall from a ladder puts Juliet into the hospital and rehab, forcing Juliet to acknowledge that she needs her daughter’s help – and that she’s in love with her friend and neighbor, Henry.

Olivia’s return to Cape Sanctuary makes her re-examine her life, her relationships, and the job that keeps her well-paid but prevents her from fulfilling her dreams.

And Caitlin’s compulsive reading of both her mother’s and her aunt’s teenage diaries brings all of the secrets that have been hidden out into the open, surprising everyone with just how much they’ve all been hiding in the vain attempt to keep each other “safe”.

The kind of safety they are all trying to maintain is an illusion, but love, on the other hand, is very, very real. If you let it in.

Escape Rating B+: The Sea Glass Cottage isn’t really a romance, in spite of the number of romances that take place within its pages. And not that two of its heroines don’t find their HEA by the time the story ends.

But the heart of this story is the relationship between three generations of Harper women, grandmother Juliet, daughter Olivia, and granddaughter Caitlin. And even 15-year-old Caitlin’s HEA is hinted at being somewhere in her future, just not yet.

But it’s the way that the relationships among the three women are changed by Juliet’s accident and Olivia’s return to Sanctuary Cove that create the beating heart of this story. And at the center of their story – and their estrangements – are a series of lies and half-truths that have kept them apart and in some ways kept them broken for most of Caitlin’s life.

What reshapes their story and their lives is the unraveling of the truth about the events that took Steve Harper’s life all those years ago. Juliet’s husband Steve was the chief of the volunteer fire department, and he died in a fire that he should never have entered, alone and unequipped, because he believed his daughter’s best friend was inside the burning house.

And that’s a burden that Cooper Vance, the best friend in question, has been shouldering alone for all these years. He feels like he’s the reason his friend and mentor died, and indirectly the reason that the Harper family fell to shreds – as well as the reason that Natalie fell into addiction until it killed her.

Caitlin’s discovery of her mother’s and her aunt’s diaries has opened all of the old wounds, but Caitlin, like Cooper, like Juliet and like Olivia, tries to bear the weight of those secrets alone. Until they all come spilling out, all the ugly truths are finally revealed, and healing can finally begin.

At the beginning of the story, Caitlin is, quite honestly, a bitch all the way around. She’s 15 and trying to hold a terrible secret. She lashes out at pretty much everyone around her, and her parts are difficult to read for quite a while into the story. She does get less abrasive as the story goes on and the reveals start coming, but it takes a while.

She’s holding her aunt Olivia responsible for crap she said when she was hurting, oddly enough around the age that Caitlin is now. But Caitlin isn’t able to make the leap from her own hurt feelings to the idea that an adult in her life, one that she loved and respected, was once a whiny teenage girl – just like her.

The romances are of the extremely slow burn variety. A burn that catches its fire off-screen, but the slow progression of the romances feels right for the way that the story works. I found it particularly poignant that one of those romances featured 50something Olivia, and was with her younger friend and neighbor at that! Her hesitance and the reasons for it felt very real.

Although the first half of the book was a bit slow-going, it has a lot of heavy lifting to do, setting up the relationships, the crises, the family background and all the secrets. Once this one gets going, it reads really fast as the hits come thick and fast and all of the burning issues get resolved. So when you start this one, have a little patience and hang on for a lovely read!

Simply beautiful. The book encapsulated me with its warmth and mystery from the very first scene until the end, bringing with it a delicious happiness at having read a beautiful story of three women, strong yet vulnerable in the secrets they hid. RaeAnne Thayne was one awesome author who could bring joy into my heart at these times to stress.

Olivia was away from home since 12 years, but a call about her mother Juliet's accident brought her back to Cape Sanctuary and Sea Glass Cottage, where her niece Caitlin awaited. Secrets hidden soon came to light as the three formed a new bond with each other.

Having read many books by this talented author, I loved the anticipation to get into this story. The women were so different yet so similar. It was fun to get to know them as they got to know each other. All three of them had to let go of the baggage of their past if they wanted a new life together. I loved how the author brought them together, slowly taking the time to bind them, one thread at a time.

The story could pull me into its depths by the loving way it was written. The scenes moved sequentially as it I were watching a heart warming movie. Forgiveness was the core of the book, and realizing they were just humans who made mistakes brought me to tears. Love and happiness made their pain lighter, and it was wonderful to see them shining bright down the pages.

Romance soon followed and happily ever after soon ensured. But it was the journey of the three, bound by blood and love, which captured by soul and didn't let go. A beautiful read.

RaeAnne Thayne's newest novel, The Sea Glass Cottage, shares the stories of three generations of women. Juliet is a 53 year-old widow who runs the family garden center in Cape Sanctuary. She lost her husband nearly 20 years ago, and then lost her eldest daughter Natalie to a drug overdose shortly after.



Juliet was left to raise Natalie's baby daughter Caitlin. Now 15 years old, Caitlin feels like Juliet is more her mother than grandmother. When Juliet has a serious fall from a ladder, her daughter Olivia has to leave her own life and job behind in Seattle to help her estranged mother and run the garden center.



Olivia has always felt that her mother paid more attention to the troubled Natalie and raising Caitlin, and running the garden center to give her much attention. Coming back home is difficult, made more so by Caitlin's inexplicable hostile attitude towards her.



Caitlin found her mother and Olivia's teenage journals and is determined to discover the name of her father. She believes it to be one of three men, all who live in town. With the help of her best friend Jake, she sets to work to find her father.



Jake's father Henry owns a landscaping design business, and he and Juliet are close friends. Henry would like to be more than friends, and takes every opportunity to help Juliet in her time of need. Juliet has romantic feelings for Henry too, but she is hiding a secret from everyone that she believes makes it impossible to have a deeper relationship with him.



Olivia is feeling overwhelmed trying to run the garden center, care for her mom, and keep up with her clients from her job back home. She reconnects with her best friend Melody, whose husband deserted her and their three young sons, and Melody's older brother Cooper, the town's handsome fire chief.



Oftentimes in books with two or three main protagonists, one story line is stronger than the others. RaeAnne Thayne manages to write each woman's story to be of equal interest. As someone close to Juliet's age, I related to her storyline. She wants to be strong for everyone in her family, and when she lost her husband and daughter, she rose to the task, even if Olivia felt hurt at the time.



Olivia has unresolved feelings about her mother, sister and father, feelings she must now come home and face. She steps up to the task of running the garden center, and her mother gives her the courage to look at the kind of life she really wants.



Caitlin is a stong-willed teenager, who fiercely loves her grandmother, but wants answers about her mother's life. She is a well-rounded character, and anyone who has been around teenage girls can appreciate her.



We were introduced to many wonderful people in the town of Cape Sanctuary, and I hope that Thayne continues their stories in future books. The Sea Glass Cottage is a perfect read to escape from the craziness out there right now. Lose yourself in this lovely story in this lovely town. I recommend it.



Thanks to Harlequin for including me on RaeAnne Thyane's tour.

This is my first book by this author and I’m glad I picked up the book. The story is about a daughter who returns home when her mother has an accident and needs help recovering. While she is at home, she runs into and old crush and realizes she still has feelings for him.

I enjoyed this book and it reminded me of a Hallmark movie to an extent. It was a very nice, light read to escape in.

Olivia Harper goes back to her hometown, Cape Sanctuary, when her mother, Juliet, falls and can’t run the family business. She comes home to an angry fifteen-year-old niece, and her childhood crush, Cooper, now the Fire Chief of Cape Sanctuary.

This is a story of healing between the Harper women, dealing with past tragedy, but also about finding love for both Juliet and Olivia. I do love a story of unrequited romance, and friends turning into more, so I loved both Olivia and Juliet’s journey! Caitlin had her own perspective and story, too.

This beautiful story was set in a small town by the sea, a place that came to life, vividly described by the author so I could almost feel the sea breezes off the sea right along with the characters!

RaeAnne Thayne's "The Sea Glass Cottage" was an enjoyable read, reminiscent of one of Debbie Macomber's or Emily March's novels. There were a lot of plot threads and characters involved in the story, but everything was woven together nicely and easy to follow. Each of the characters was likeable and well-developed, and their complicated relationships plus the various secrets they kept from each other made for a compelling story.

I particularly enjoyed the book's overarching themes of healing and forgiveness, as well as how the three generations of Harper women came to better understand each other and how to navigate their complex family dynamics. Juliet, Olivia, and Caitlin were much closer by the end of the book and had learned to relate to each other in new, healthier ways. Their individual journeys were quite interesting as well, and Juliet's and Olivia's romances with Henry and Cooper, respectively, added yet another emotional layer to the plot.

In addition to the central story involving the Harper family, I was also drawn into the plot thread involving Cooper's sister Melody, whose husband had abandoned her and her three young boys a few months earlier. Melody seemed like such a lovely person, and her boys added a bit of fun to the narrative. It would be great to see Melody's story continue in a future book. She deserves to find love again, and her boys deserve a father figure besides their Uncle Cooper.

Overall, I am pleased to recommend "The Sea Glass Cottage" for anyone who enjoys stories about the complex nature of family relationships and learning how to forgive the ones we love even when it's a challenge. I look forward to Ms. Thayne's next book.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

Olivia Harper is doing well for herself. She has a job she is really good at and she has even started her own company, helping small companies with their social media. When a traumatic event changes her life in Seattle, it's at the same time she gets a call to return home to California to help her mother. Olivia left Cape Sanctuary and didn't want to return. But it seems now, she doesn't have a choice, she has to go back and face the demons she left behind and confront the past that is before her. As she is there taking care of her mother and trying to figure out why her niece now hates her, lots of secrets come to the surface. Will Olivia be able to make it through her short time in Cape Sanctuary and return to her home in Seattle?

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the opportunity to read and review this book.

After losing her father and her sister, Olivia's mother didn't have much time and energy left for Olivia. Especially after having to take over the family business and raise her granddaughter, Juliet was happy that Olivia was able to take care of herself and did so well in school. But often she regretted how she handled herself during those times, though she was doing the best she could.

This was the second book that I have read by RaeAnne Thayne. I would describe it as a romance with a dramatic flair to go with it. With secrets and lies hiding in the corners, you never know what is going to happen next. Toward the end, the book got to be a bit predictable, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story as a whole.

4.5 stars

What a beautiful story. In the beginning I couldn’t help but notice the similarity with some other recent stories I read, but that’s just the bones. By the time I got to know the characters I was no longer thinking of the other stories I read. Each author puts their own spin on things. I can’t think of what they name of this trope would be, but I have been noticing more and more books with whatever this one happens to be.

There is so much chemistry bouncing around in this book. Not just between the different romantic interests, but also friendships and familial relationships. I could easily feel all of the connections, the author did a brilliant job with that.

I’m a huge fan of warm-fuzzies. If your story gives me warm-fuzzies I will enjoy the book. I swear, for the last 25% of this book I was on a roller coaster with my emotions. Trust me, even if there are spots here and there that you don’t agree with along the way in this one, the ending is worth it all.

Every family has secrets; in real life and in fiction. Sometimes they are kept out of spite or ill intent. In the case of the Harper family these secrets are kept out of love. Unfortunately, as secrets tend to do, things festered and things were made worse instead of better. While the secrets Caitlin and Juliet keep are resolved by the end, I felt as though Olivia still had some work to do. Cooper recognizes and learns Olivia’s woes, but it’s still something she’s trying to sweep under the rug. This, in my mind, is the only problem with this story. I’d love to have seen Olivia to get some help.

Although I classify this story as a contemporary romance, it’s also a very family centered tale. It’s about strong women feeling the pressure to be perfect. It’s about caring women wanting to do it all for their loved ones. What I’m saying is that this book is deep and beautiful and inspiring.

I am happy to be able to participate in the Harlequin Blog Tour for Raynne Thayne’s newest release (March 17, 2020). I stayed up way too late to finish this delightful romance. It left me with the urge to binge-read all her novels.

If you find yourself under a mandated lockdown, self-quarantine, or are just looking for an escape from this scary situation at the moment, The Sea Glass Cottage is the book for you. You will find yourself transported to a quaint little town in Northern California and into the lives of three generations of women who are all trying to find themselves. By the end, you will be smiling from ear to ear and believing in love all over again.

Treat yourself a few hours of clean entertainment while your own kids are getting their reading minutes in during the day.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, Harlequin, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

I enjoyed this book about three generations of women, learning about themselves and sharing their secrets with each other and those they love. We've got Juliet, the matriarch who runs the family's garden shop since she was widowed years ago. She's the mother of Olivia, a successful tech business owner living 12 hours away in Seattle. The third generation is Caitlin, Olivia's niece who has spent her 15-year-life so far with Juliet.

Caitlin has been snooping around, trying to find clues to who her father is, since her mother died of an overdose before Caitlin could get to know her. And Juliet has been hiding secrets about her own health, which may come to a head quickly after she falls from a ladder at the garden center, breaking her hip and some ribs. Olivia has decided she is the one who needs to hold them all together now, but she's still a little nervous about being in public after witnessing a very public crime a week or so earlier.

I found Juliet and Olivia's stubborn independence a bit relatable, but could also understand the healthy dose of teenage attitude that Caitlin was dishing out without telling anyone why. The men they interacted with sometimes seemed like just props in the journey of the women to be find their way through their own circumstances and trust each other with their truths and their hearts.

Overall, I'd give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I really didn't want to believe one of the things that was revealed, and kept waiting for an alternative truth, but otherwise the story was pretty predictable.

Olivia's life has been in a rut, but when she returns home to care for her mother and niece she realizes that it was perhaps worse than she thought. Memories of life back home may have been skewed over time, and the more time she spends here now, the more she finds that time really has healed the wounds she once felt. Can she find peace here now? Every character is well developed and real, the story just pulls you in. Another book that reaches in to your heart and pulls on every string, with plenty of humor mixed in.

With a beautiful, inviting cover and a setting on the Northern California coast, The Sea Glass Cottage is the latest Cape Sanctuary novel by RaeAnne Thayne. Thayne is a master at creating realistic, colorful, engaging characters and placing them in charming small-town settings. This story focuses on three generations of family—Olivia Harper, her mother Juliet, and her niece Caitlin. All three of them have had past trauma in their lives and each has her own secrets and views of past happenings. Then Cooper, Henry, and Jake are thrown into the mix with more secrets and angst. As they all interact and communicate their feelings and resolve their misconceptions, they find that everything is not as it seemed. Thayne weaves their stories together beautifully with this delicious, satisfying read.

One quote that I especially liked has Henry telling Olivia, “We’re all afraid. The trick is figuring out that the thing you need is just on the other side of that fear. The only way you can reach it is by going right through the center of it.” It was true for the characters in the story, and I think it can definitely be applied in our lives. I’m looking forward to more wonderful stories from this author. 4.5 stars

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy from the publisher and NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

If you’re looking for a comfort food type of read right now you have to give this book a try! RT books provide me with the greatest escape and they always leave me feeling hopeful in the end and I think we all need a little hope right now. This one just came out yesterday but she has an extensive backlist of books as well and I can definitely recommend quite a few if anyone is interested.

This follows a family of strong women as they struggle to reconnect. Olivia goes back home to Cape Sanctuary to help her mother Juliet after an accident and you also hear from Caitlin, Olivia’s niece and Juliet’s granddaughter. All three are strong, inspiring women with relatable and realistic issues and I adored all three. If you read The Cliff House last year there are a few scenes with the characters from that book which I always think is so fun for fans! Another fantastic read from one of my favorite authors when I need a feel good type of read, highly recommended by me.

Such a great book! I really love RaeAnne Thayne and this might be a new favorite. Great story that focuses on Olivia, her mother Juliet, and her niece Caitlin. Lots of emotion in this story. I thought the story was very well written and engaging. Highly recommended!