The Sea Keeper's Daughters

A Carolina Heirlooms Novel

Paperback, ebook, hardcover, audio 

September 8, 2015

by Lisa Wingate

• 448 pages
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 
• ISBN-13: 978-1414388274

From modern-day Roanoke Island to the sweeping backdrop of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and Roosevelt’s WPA folklore writers, past and present intertwine to create an unexpected destiny.

Restaurant owner Whitney Monroe is desperate to save her business from a hostile takeover. The inheritance of a decaying Gilded Age hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks may provide just the ray of hope she needs. But things at the Excelsior are more complicated than they seem. Whitney’s estranged stepfather is entrenched on the third floor, and the downstairs tenants are determined to save the historic building. Searching through years of stored family heirlooms may be Whitney’s only hope of quick cash, but will the discovery of an old necklace and a Depression-era love story change everything?

My thoughts:  I generally love Ms. Wingate's stories and looked forward to this one. Ms. Wingate is a very very talented storyteller, making the story come to life. Her characters walk off the page and into life, becoming the person you see driving down the road, the stranger in the grocery store, the visitor in church.  But then they become more, they turn into friends, since it is written in first person, you know their thoughts, their concerns, their hurts, their plans...Everything. 

At times this story did seem to drag. It was slow, not a fast-pace edge of your seat book. It's one you can carry in the car and read a few pages at the DMV, a few pages at the dentist, a chapter during your lunch break or lulls at work, but not one that you'd spend the day devouring, burning dinner because you couldn't put it down. 

If you love Lisa Wingate's books, family sagas, or women's fiction give THE SEAKEEPER'S DAUGHTERS a try. You will want to read this series in order, The Story Keeper, and The Prayer Box, as well as some of the novellas (I absolutely LOVED the novellas) 

I hurt for Whtney, and cared what happened to her. Wondered where her step-father disappeared to, wondered what she'd do with her grandmother's legacy... Recommended for a great tale. 4 stars.