RaeAnne Thayne never fails to charm with her lovely small-town stories and colorful, multi-layered characters. The Path to Sunshine Cove is so inviting and easy to get absorbed in. I loved revisiting Cape Sanctuary, an enticing beach town in northern California and meeting the fascinating people who live there. Jess and Rachel, with their complicated and tragic background, are sisters who are trying to have a closer relationship. Nate is an endearing, protective, and caring hero, and I enjoyed his relationship with Jess. A superb cast of supporting characters added to my enjoyment of the tale.

I liked seeing the story from the three different points of view of Jessica, Rachel, and Nate. The chapters had headings labeled with the person whose perspective I was seeing, so it was easy to know what was going on. If you’re looking for a delicious, satisfying, and romantic read, grab this book and enjoy some sand and surf at Sunshine Cove.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ( )

Jess has taken a job in Cape Sanctuary. She hopes to renew her relationship with her sister. Jess finds her sister is struggling with her life and family. She also discovers it is very hard to forgive the past and move forward. But with the help of Nate, Jess might discover more than she expected.

I love new beach reads! It’s my favorite time of the book publishing year! And this year is shaping up fantastically!

This is a wonderful story. Jess is one of my favorite characters in this novel. She has a unique job with a unique living situation. Jess cleans out clutter and she travels in her refurbished airstream trailer to do it. But, she comes with a good bit of baggage. And when she sees her sister, Rachel, again it all starts to come to the surface.

Need a good, heartwarming, family twist with a love story thrown in…this is it! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review. ( )

Sometimes you just need a comforting read, a book that you curl up with at the end of hard day. RaeAnne Thayne's new novel, The Path to Sunshine Cove, perfectly fits that bill.

The setting is Cape Sanctuary, a California coast town "defined by whimsical houses, overflowing gardens, wind chimes, and Japanese fishing balls." Jess is in Cape Sanctuary for work; she travels the country helping people clean out and reorganize their homes. Her task is to help Eleanor, a woman who lost her husband six months ago, and now wants to downsize her beautiful home.

Eleanor's adult son Nate and his teenage daughter Sophie live in a home on the property and are taken by surprise when Jess shows up in cute little Airstream trailer to help Eleanor. Nate is gruff with Jess, and not happy to be blindsided by her presence.

Jess will also visit with her sister Rachel, something that doesn't occur too often. Jess unexpectedly shows up at Rachel's home, just as Rachel is dealing with two young daughters and her three year-old son, who is on the autism spectrum and having a bad day.

We are given clues that something traumatic happened to Jess and Rachel, and that incident caused the two sisters to become estranged after the death of their parents. Jess joined the army and served in the Middle East, and Rachel married her high school boyfriend Cody and started her family.

Rachel is an Instagram influencer, and projects a happy, wonderful life to the world. But her son's diagnosis and husband's consuming job as a construction company owner has been causing her stress she is unwilling to admit to anyone, particularly her sister.

Jess is a loner, with only one close friend, her fellow soldier and business partner. She finds herself attracted to Nate, and enjoys the company of his mother and daughter, but is wary of becoming more involved with the family.

Thayne does a wonderful job with the sibling relationship between Jess and Rachel, and the marital relationship with Rachel and Cody. Cody wants to help Rachel, and he is a good father to his children, but Rachel can be too rigid and it could drive him away. I think many women may be able to see some of themselves in Rachel.

You know what you are going to get in a RaeAnne Thayne novel- characters you care about, in situations that you can relate to (and some you thankfully can't), in a beautiful setting. I enjoy learning about other people's jobs, and I found Jess' career going into people's homes and helping them organize fascinating. I have a friend who is so good at this, all she needs is an Airstream trailer. ( )

Good book about the complications of family life and relationships told from the viewpoints of three people. I enjoyed the realism of their struggles with their pasts, the effects of those pasts on the present, and the desire to change the future.

Jess and Rachel are sisters whose traumatic childhoods affected them both. As children, they were very close, but the effects of their parents’ deaths drove a wedge between them. Though they see each other occasionally, their meetings are always strained. Neither one knows how to fix it.

Jess is independent, self-contained, and very much a loner. Her business, Transitions, involves going to a client’s home, helping them clear things out, then moving on to the next job. She doesn’t spend enough time with anyone to form a relationship, and that suits her fine. She tells herself she is too busy for a man in her life. In reality, her parents’ marriage put her entirely off the idea of love. Her father was a controlling bully, and her mother believed he could do no wrong. Jess misses the close relationship she had with Rachel and hopes she can use this time in Cape Sanctuary to mend fences.

Rachel settled down in Cape Sanctuary, marrying her high school sweetheart, Cody. They have three children, the youngest recently diagnosed with autism. Rachel is very active on social media, where she has a large following, but the perfect life she portrays online isn’t so perfect in real life. Her quest for perfection has put a strain on her marriage and driven her close to a nervous breakdown. Rachel wants her old relationship with Jess back but has no confidence that it will actually happen.

Nate is the son of Jess’s newest client, Eleanor, and the single father of thirteen-year-old Sophie. He is very protective of his mother, who is still grieving his father’s death, and is suspicious of Jess when she arrives. He has his hands full with his construction business and Sophie’s newly acquired teenage attitude and has put any romantic relationships on the back burner for the foreseeable future.

I enjoyed seeing the various characters establish or re-establish connections with those they love. There are many past hurts, fears, and desires that need to be faced before our characters can move on to the happiness they each long for. Rachel struck me as the one who is most overwhelmed. The effect of her childhood on her is the need for everything to be perfect. Her highly popular social media account portrays a family far from reality, and she struggles to reconcile the two. In real life, she deals with a husband who works long hours, a two-year-old newly diagnosed as autistic, and a refusal to believe that it is okay to ask for help. That attitude puts a strain on her marriage, and she seems unable to change. Jess’s arrival is just one more thing for her to deal with. I admit there were times I wanted to shake her. Her husband was great, but he couldn’t do anything right in her eyes. Though tentative in her attempts at first, I liked how Jess saw Rachel’s struggles and tried to help. Though things were a little better, it took an explosive confrontation between the two to knock down the walls that kept them apart and finally start the healing process. Admitting she needs help also went a long way toward helping Rachel and Cody reconnect. I loved Jess’s suggestion at the end and how Rachel ran with it.

I liked Jess. It is evident from the start that she loves her job and helping people streamline their lives. Though she usually keeps a professional distance between herself and her clients, it’s clear that her relationship with Eleanor is different from the start. I loved how Eleanor refused to be business-only and sucked Jess right into the family. Jess was somewhat unnerved by the emotions that working with Eleanor stirred up, as she wasn’t accustomed to caring that way for her clients. I loved her kindness and patience as they worked their way through Eleanor’s treasures and memories of her husband, Jack. At the end, a crisis with Eleanor makes Jess realize that she’s risked more with this family than anyone else in many years.

Then there’s Nate. Once he got past his suspicions about Jess, he couldn’t deny the effect she had on him. I loved watching them spend time together, discovering how easy it is to talk to each other. Sparks of attraction are there also, but with Jess’s stay being temporary, they are reluctant to pursue it. Well, Jess is reluctant. The feelings he stirs in her scare her, as she has visions of turning into her mother. I ached for them both when Jess finishes the job because Nate wants her to stay, and Jess wants to, also, but doesn’t trust herself. I loved the advice she got and what she did with it. The epilogue was terrific and showed that anything was possible with love.

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