Happy Friday, friends! 🙂 The book I’m featuring for today’s edition of First Line Friday is the perfect summer read. The Key to Everything by Valerie Fraser Luesse is set in Florida, and her descriptions of the people and places will put you in a summer state of mind. Here’s the first line – keep reading for my review!

April 1947

“Though he couldn’t have known, nor ever guessed, Peyton Cabot had just witnessed a bittersweet kiss goodbye.”

The Key to Everything by Valerie Fraser Luesse

The Basics

Title: The Key to Everything

Author: Valerie Fraser Luesse

Genre: Historical Fiction

My Rating: 5 Stars

From the Back Cover: Peyton Cabot’s fifteenth year will be a painful and transformative one. His father, the heroic but reluctant head of a moneyed Savannah family, has come home from WWII a troubled vet, drowning his demons in bourbon and distancing himself from his son. A tragic accident shows Peyton the depths of his parents’ devotion to each other but interrupts his own budding romance with the girl of his dreams, Lisa Wallace.

Struggling to cope with a young life upended, Peyton makes a daring decision: He will retrace a journey his father took at fifteen, riding his bicycle all the way to Key West, Florida. Part declaration of independence, part search for self, Peyton’s journey will bring him more than he ever could have imagined–namely, the key to his unknowable father, a reunion with Lisa, and a calling that will shape the rest of his life.

Through poignant prose and characters so real you’ll be sure you know them, Valerie Fraser Luesse transports you to the storied Atlantic coast for a unique coming-of-age story you won’t soon forget.

My Thoughts

I enjoyed Valerie Fraser Luesse’s last book, Almost Home, but I didn’t expect to love this one as much as I did! The Key to Everything is a captivating story, full of rich and compelling characters, especially Peyton. I felt myself rooting for him from the first page, and his story of growth and transformation is one I think we can all relate to.

The setting of this story is unique, from the time period – just after WWII – to the location – the coast of Florida, all the way to Key West. The war’s effects are experienced secondhand, as Peyton’s life is forever changed by the way the war haunts his father. His bike ride down the coast of Florida forces him to come to terms with the tragedy he’s faced and start to determine the kind of man he will be, outside his family’s shadow. It is a coming of age story, but also a story of transformation, healing, and purpose. I think fans of Charles Martin’s The Water Keeper would enjoy this one!

Now it’s your turn! Please share the first line of the book you’re reading in the comments below. Don’t forget to head to Hoarding Books to see what first lines other bloggers are sharing, or to share your own!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. Thank you, Revell!

Happy Friday, friends! I can’t believe that tomorrow is already the first day of summer! That makes the book I’m featuring today for First Line Friday the perfect book to enjoy this weekend – The Summer House by Lauren K. Denton.

“The morning Worth left, something pulled Lily from her sleep, though at first glance nothing seemed out of place.”

The Summer House by Lauren K. Denton

That line definitely makes me want to keep reading! Preferably from a beautiful porch swing like the one on this cover 🙂

The Basics

Title: The Summer House

Author: Lauren K. Denton

Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction/Southern Fiction

My Rating: 5 Stars

From the Back Cover: Sometimes it takes losing everything to find yourself again.

Lily Bishop wakes up one morning to find a good-bye note and divorce papers from her husband on the kitchen counter. Having moved to Alabama for his job only weeks before, Lily is devastated, but a flyer at the grocery store for a hair stylist position in a local retirement community provides a refuge while she contemplates her next steps.

Rose Carrigan built the small retirement village of Safe Harbor years ago—just before her husband ran off with his assistant. Now she runs a tight ship, making sure the residents follow her strict rules. Rose keeps everyone at arm’s length, including her own family. But when Lily shows up asking for a job and a place to live, Rose’s cold exterior begins to thaw.

Lily and Rose form an unlikely friendship, and Lily’s salon soon becomes the place where residents share town gossip, as well as a few secrets. Lily soon finds herself drawn to Rose’s nephew, Rawlins—a single dad and shrimper who’s had some practice at starting over—and one of the residents may be carrying a torch for Rose as well.

Neither Lily nor Rose is where she expected to be, but the summer makes them both wonder if there’s more to life and love than what they’ve experienced so far. The Summer House weaves Lauren K. Denton’s inviting Southern charm around a woman’s journey to find herself.

My Thoughts

“This life is a beautiful thing – it’s precious and fleeting, and we’d all be crazy not to reach out and grab it with both hands and hang on tight.”

From the first page of this story, I felt like I was transported to the small village called Safe Harbor on the Alabama coast. With her signature Southern charm and grace, Lauren K. Denton has written a beautiful story about starting over, taking chances, and becoming who you were meant to be. Rose and Lily couldn’t have done that without the community around them, and there are definitely some some fun, slightly eccentric characters who add both lightheartedness and depth to the story! Besides the beautiful setting, which could be a character itself, my favorite part of the story was seeing Lily’s transformation from a betrayed, hurting woman to one who has found her purpose and is ready to open her heart again. When I finished the book, I wished I could stay in Safe Harbor a little longer – that’s a sign of a great story!

Now it’s your turn! Please share the first line of the book you’re reading in the comments below. Don’t forget to head to Hoarding Books to see what first lines other bloggers are sharing, or to share your own!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Happy Friday! It’s time for another First Line Friday linkup, hosted by Hoarding Books. Today I’m featuring Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan.

“From the very beginning it was the Great Lion who brought us together.”

Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan

I have to admit, that first line did draw me in with the Narnia reference 🙂

The Basics

Title: Becoming Mrs. Lewis

Author: Patti Callahan

Genre: Christian Historical Fiction/Biography

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

From the Back Cover: When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.  

In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we meet a brilliant writer, a fiercely independent mother, and a passionate woman who changed the life of this respected author and inspired books that still enchant us and change us. Joy lived at a time when women weren’t meant to have a voice—and yet her love for Jack gave them both voices they didn’t know they had. 

At once a fascinating historical novel and a glimpse into a writer’s life, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is above all a love story—a love of literature and ideas and a love between a husband and wife that, in the end, was not impossible at all.

My Thoughts

One of my goals for 2020 is to read more of C.S. Lewis’ books. Before this year, I had only ever read The Chronicles of Narnia! So while I’ve been reading Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce, I thought it would be interesting to learn a little more about Lewis’ life.

I’ve heard a lot of great things about this book, and I really wanted to like it, but I have mixed feelings about it. For one thing, with a fictionalized biography like this, it’s hard to know how much is true and how much is the author’s imagination. That makes it hard to know if the parts I didn’t enjoy as much, like Joy’s feelings for Jack while she was still married, were historically accurate or not. There were other parts of the story I did enjoy, such as the vivid descriptions of Oxford, the snippets of Joy’s writings throughout, and learning about her influence on Lewis’ writing of some of his well-known books.

The story also felt a little long; it does cover a long period of time, but dragged on for me in places. It got better towards the end, and seeing how Jack and Joy’s marriage eventually came to be was one of my favorite parts, even if it was a little bittersweet. Overall, this was an interesting, enjoyable story that I think fans of C.S. Lewis will appreciate.

Now it’s your turn! Please share the first line of the book you’re reading in the comments below. Don’t forget to head to Hoarding Books to see what first lines other bloggers are sharing, or to share your own!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.