Sweet Waters

Title: SWEET WATERS
Author: Julie Carobini
Publisher: Broadman & Holman
August 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8054-4873-3
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary/romance

Dexton, Missouri, no longer holds anything for Tara Sweet. Her mother has gotten married to a much-younger man and headed off for a year long honeymoon in Europe, her sister, Liz, has moved to Manhattan, and Tara has lost her job and her fiancé in one unexpected swoop. So, Tara decides to take her younger cousin, and moves back to Otter Bay, California, the town she was born in, but one her parents left when she was small.

Once in Otter Bay, Tara lands a job manning the front desk of a hotel, and catches the eye of a local firefighter. Tara remembers spending idyllic times on the coast there with her father, and other memories begin surfacing there as well.

But Tara is not welcomed everywhere. The owner of The Red Abalone Grill, for instance, seems quite hostile toward Tara especially once she discovers who her parents are. And Tara begins to discover shocking secrets about why her family left the area all those years ago.

SWEET WATERS is the third book in Ms. Carobini’s An Otter Bay series, but it easily stands alone. I enjoyed reading this series set on the ocean front in California, and getting to know the residents there. The dialogue is quirky, and the characters are realistic.

Tara is a real heroine, kind of an individual who is stuck in a rut and not sure how to get out of it. It takes everything changing at her mother’s wedding for Tara to give up the familiar and set out on an adventure, even though she termed it an extended vacation and she left all her safety nets in place in Missouri. I enjoyed getting to know her, and her cousin, and all their new friends in California. Don’t miss this newest “beach-lit” by this up-and-coming novelist. $14.99. 400 pages.