THE LONG WAY HOME: The Chesapeake Diaries (MARIAH STEWART)

 

 

Story Description: 

 

Random House Publishing Group|January 29, 2013|Mass Market Paperbound|ISBN: 978-0-53841-3 

 

New York Times Bestseller Mariah Stewart presents a captivating contemporary romance novel in the tradition of Robyn Carr, Susan Mallery, and Barbara Freethy.

 

 As the only child of a wealthy investment manager, Ellie Chapman has never known anything besides a life of perfect privilege.  But her years of good fortune come to an abrupt end when her father is exposed for swindling billions of dollars from innocent investors in a massive Ponzi scheme.  And just like that, Ellie loses everything: money, job, home – even her fiancé, who’s jailed as her father’s partner in crime.  With no job prospects on the horizon, no cash, and her family name in tatters, Ellie has only one place to go. 

 

Sleepy St. Dennis, Maryland, is hardly where Ellie intends to stay, however.   Keeping her identity a secret, she plans to sell the house her late mother left her in the small town and use the proceeds to move on with her life.  Unfortunately, her ticket to a new beginning is in dire need of a laundry list of pricey improvements, many of which she’ll have to do herself.  And until the house on Bay View Road is fit to be sold, the sole place Ellie will be traveling is the hardware store.  But as the many charms of St. Dennis – not to mention Cameron O’Connor, the handsome local contractor who has secrets of his own – begin to work their magic, what begins as a lesson in do-it-yourself renovations might just end up as Ellie’s very own rejuvenation. 

 

Includes a preview of the next book in the Chesapeake Diaries series, At the River’s Edge. 

 

My Review: 

 

Ellie Chapman has always lived a life of privilege until her father is exposed for swindling billions of dollars from innocent investors in a massive Ponzi scheme.  With the snap of fingers, Ellie loses everything she ever worked for including her home, her job, her car, and her money.  She had nowhere left to go except to a home that her late mother left to her in her will. 

 

Ellie heads for the sleepy little town of St. Dennis, Maryland and when she arrives she discovers that the home is going to need tons of renovation to make it re-sellable.  Unfortunately, with no money left, Ellie is going to have to do these renovations herself and it’s something she’s never done before.  However, she rolls up her sleeves and begins to tackle the job as best she can until she one day meets a local contractor named Cameron O’Connor.  Soon there is a love connection and she has help with the renovations. 

 

Things are moving along nicely for Ellie who is happy with the work on the house and immensely happy with Cameron and then she receives a phone call from her lawyer who wants to see her immediately and he won’t tell her over the phone what he wants to see her about.  Ellie knows it’s something very serious and is worried.  What is the lawyer going to tell her?  Is she losing the house on Bay View Road too, or is something else coming up the pipe? 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading the next in this series.