Book Review:16 Lighthouse Road (Cedar Cove #1) by Debbie Macomber

Book: 16 Lighthouse Road

Author: Debbie Macomber

Series: Cedar Cove #1

Publication: January 1st, 2001

Source: Digital Library

Rating: 5/5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads)

Dear Reader,

You don't know me yet, but in a few hours that's going to change. I'm inviting you to my town of Cedar Cove because I want you to meet my family, friends and neighbors. Come hear their stories--maybe even their secrets!

My secrets are pretty open. My marriage failed years ago, and I have a rather...difficult relationship with my daughter. Then there's my mother, Charlotte, who has plenty of opinions and is always willing to share them.

I'm a family court judge and she likes to drop in on my courtroom. Recently I was hearing a divorce petition. In Charlotte's view, Cecilia and Ian Randall hadn't tried hard enough to make their marriage work--and I agreed. I rendered my judgment: Divorce Denied.

You wouldn't believe the reaction! Thanks to an article by Jack Griffin, the editor of our local paper (a man I wouldn't mind seeing more of!), everyone's talking.

Cedar Cove--people love it and sometimes they leave it, but they never forget it!

Olivia Lockhart

My Thoughts: 

I orginally wanted to read this book because A) I liked Debbie Macomber books and B) they are making a series out of these books on hallmark channel. Then the dilema came of how I was going to read the cedar cove series while reading all the other books I wanted to read in January/February. The library has a relatively new feature of letting you check out ebook and audiobooks from their website for a limited period of time. I said to myself I will just listen to the audiobook. 

Then I started the audiobook. I believe you just don't get the same experience listening to a book as you get when you read it. I found myself not picturing the characters, not remembering their names, and not remembering what was going on. Altogether I wasn't overly enjoying the book. This was a book I wanted to enjoy so I checked out the ebook and I follow along with the words while listening to the audiobook. This experience was much better. 

The part I liked about the audiobook is the narrator's unique voices for each character. The part I didn't like was how slow the narrator talked sometimes. 

This first book in the series follows Olivia Lockhart who lives at 16 Lighthouse Road. I found this first book a great introduction to the series. Debbie Macomber makes you feel like you are part of the town. It reminds me of my own town in many ways because as it states in the summary people in small towns love to talk. In this first novel we meet Olivia's daughter Justine who is dating Warren Saget, Seth Gunderson (somebody Justine went to high school with), Olivia's ex-husband Stan, and Olivia's mother Charlotte. We also meet Celia Randall who is going through a divorce from her husband Ian. Olivia denies the divorce and starts an uproar around town thanks to the newspaper writer, Jack Griffin. Then there is Olivia's friend Grace Sherman who is married to Dan who is a bit of a mute. They have two daughters Maryellen and Kelly. My favorite character had to be Olivia's mother Charlotte. She sounded like a sweet lady, but one that wasn't afraid to speak her mind. This novel is not life altering or anything like that. It was a great relaxing read. I think the reason it took me so long to complete is the fact that it was an easy book to understand. I could not read anything for a couple of days and still know what happened. I thought this was a great book and I'm glad I read it. 

I'm going to do a post later about the casting for the show and what I think about them and I'm going to do a character follow along post where I talk about the characters and their journeys through this first novel. There will be spoilers, but if you read the book you should check it out. I also think it will help me keep track  since there is 12 novels and a lot of characters. 

Thanks for reading

Rachael