A Christmas by the Sea by Melody Carlson

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A CHRISTMAS BY THE SEA, HC

This is a novella written about a thirtyish widow and her son. They have inherited a beach side cottage in the town of Seaside. The mom, Wendy, has full intentions of getting the cottage ready for sale and selling it. They have a lot of debt as her husband had been very sick with cancer before he passed away and Wendy feels she must have her corporate job in Ohio to make ends meet. Jackson, her son, loves the town and feels like he is being given a fresh start. And then, of course, there is the knight in shining armor, who also lives in the town.

To be honest, I didn't realize this was supposed to be a novella until I sat down to write this review. That helps my feelings with this book, because one of my biggest issues is that the story was too short. To get from start to finish, everything moved along very fast and was focused too much, I thought, on the romantic end of it.  The other thing that I didn't like about this book is it feels like I read it before. The story line just reminds me of another book I have read. I have no idea what that book was, who the author was, or anything, but the plot seemed so very similar. I actually checked to make sure this wasn't an older book I was rereading.

I have read other Melody Carlson books and really liked them, so I have nothing against the author. Armando's Treasure is one I remember reading and thinking it was an excellent book. I just think for me, I didn't give it a fair chance as I don't really like novellas unless they are preludes to a series of regular length books. For sure, I need to know going into the reading of it that it's a novella. That I didn't know that is nobody's fault but my own.

The writing style and structure of the book was well done. I read it as an ebook and often that makes me not like the book as well. I always think there are more typos and grammar issue in ebooks or that there can be, but I did not find that to be the case. It was a well written chick flick. And the next time I might exercise more caution in finding out if it's a full length book or not.

I received this book from Revell and was not required to write a positive review.

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