This was an easy book to read. I thought that the beginning held more promise than was delivered. I had a hard time with Alex. After what had happened the last time she was with her husband, it was hard to imagine her sleeping with a stranger about a day after she met him. There seemed to be a lot to love about John but what about her caused him to fall in love? Her pain? Her willingness to waitress even after obviously always having had money? Please. It was good but it could have been better.

This book was wonderful! The details were so real; I could feel myself sitting on the New Jersey shore. Within 2 sittings, I had completed the book. Definitely a fun, daring, and heartbreaking novel. I would read it again in a heartbeat.

The town, the people, everything comes alive in this book. The author did a perfect job at making the characters seem real.

I read "Shore Lights" on the suggestion of a friend. The book sucked me in and held my attention right until the end ... and at that point I wondered what happened to the rest of the story. Throughout the book, Rose makes many references to all these ideas that she has to share with her daughter Maddy, and that just never comes to fruition. The book ends on a happy note, but I just felt it wasn't finished. The author alluded to much more. I was left wondering if there was a sequel (and hoping that there was because I liked the characters and the setting very much). I would recommend this book to other readers (it's great "beach reading"), but don't be surprised if you're not disappointed at the abrupt end.

I have read several of this authors books and find this to be the best. Not only do the characters grab your attention, and their plights and dilemna's tug at your heart, but there is reality intertwined with drama. From the beginning you could tell the author was writing from experience. The facts, the descriptions, the feelings, you knew the author experienced some of the angst and/or feelings her characters were portraying. The characters were carefully crafted, the situations real and the emotions deep. This was not your typical romance, this book will grasp your interest, hold you mesmerized and you will find yourself relating to the characters on a any level. I found character traits and idiosyncrasies I could relate to in many of the characters in this book. I did not want the book to end and when it did, I cried. After reading the authors note in the back of the book, I cried some more. This book will tug at your heartstrings.This is not your run of the mill romance. Its much more, has more depth, more characterizations, more of real life. You will enjoy it!

Sometimes an author takes a risk and it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Ms. Bretton took a risk with SHORE LIGHTS and came up with her best book yet. Don't be fooled by the word ROMANCE on the spine. Yes, there's a sweetly emotional love story between Maddy and Aidan but this is really a story about family, especially about mothers and daughters. Ms. Bretton doesn't write about perfect people in a perfect world. Her characters are so real they almost jump out of the book and sit down at the kitchen table with you and tell you their story. This is a comlex story about real human emotions and I can't sum it all up in 1000 words. But I do know that if you're looking to laugh (lots of witty dialog) and to cry (bring your tissues) and to feel better when you finish than you did when you started, SHORE LIGHTS is the book for you.

Heroine: a strapping young woman

    Dashing Zane Rutledge hadn't planned on crossing paths again with his beautiful ex-wife, but had no choice when the passing of his last-remaining relative left him in the possession of one Revolutionary War uniform. A uniform which none other than American History buff Emilie Crosse was best qualified to examine.

Emilie hadn't seen her jet-setting ex in five years, but clearly he still had the ability to make her spine tingle just by walking into a room. Her greatest regret was that their brief marriage was grounded only in their physical attraction to each other, that their wants and desires for their lives were such polar opposites of each other.

Swept back through time by an unusual storm, the unlikely pair find themselves in the middle of an uprising: the colonies are about to declare their Independence from Britain. A stunned Emilie meets childhood hero Andrew McVie in the flesh, discovering that he has the wants and desires of any other man. And that his wants are a mirror of her own. Emilie must decide between the man of her own time whom she once loved but couldn't live with, and a man of the past who could give her the home she always longed for.

What worked for me:
I always enjoy a good time-travel story. I think it's fascinating to see how modern-day people struggle to get by in a world unlike their own. Emilie was an interesting lady and I sympathized with her situation.   

What didn't work for me:
Zane was handsome, but shallow. Yes, his character did grow as the story moved along but he still had a long way to go even by the end of the book.

Overall:
Very pleasant book, but if you are a fan of novels rich in historical detail then this is not the book for you. While it is set in colonial America, there wasn't much mention of how people lived.  

This is the first book of a trilogy. The next book deals with secondary character Andrew McVie and his experiences in the future, which I hope to read in my own near future. :^)

This is the one. I read it for the first time six years ago and never forgot it. I re-read it this weekend and what can I say? It's better than I remembered. Intelligent. Sexy. Thought-provoking. Deeply moving. A keeper.

Nothing deep or earth shattering but just what I was expecting when I started to read it, a good quick satisfying romance novel. A woman's overwhelming fears and her journey to overcome them provide the background for this love story between a young business woman trying to regain control of her life and a self-defense instructor who needed her to become whole again himself. This was the first book I have read by this author and I definitely read some of her others.

I have read numerous romance books but this is the first time i was compelled to leave a review. Read the 1st two stories and forget the 3rd. Love and laughter was supposed to be a light read but the 3rd story made my head spin. It was so ridiculous I couldn't believe I was reading it on print.