Julie's Review: Drawing Home

Author: Jamie Brenner
Series: None
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 368
Obtained: Great Thoughts, Great Readers Book Salon
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Bottom Line: Sometimes you have to fight for what is yours
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab

Summary: Summer has started in idyllic Sag Harbor, and for Emma Mapson that means greeting guests at the front desk of The American Hotel. But when one of the town's most famous residents, artist Henry Wyatt, dies suddenly, Emma learns he has mysteriously left his waterfront home - a self-designed masterpiece filled with his work - to her teenage daughter, Penny.  Back in Manhattan, legendary art patron Bea Winstead's grief at her lifelong friend and former business partner Henry's passing turns to outrage at the news of his shocking bequest. How did these unknown locals get their hands on the estate? Bea, with her devoted assistant Kyle in tow, descends on Sag Harbor determined to reclaim the house and preserve Henry's legacy. While Emma fights to defend her daughter's inheritance, Bea discovers that Henry left a treasure trove of sketches scattered around town. With Penny's reluctant help, Bea pieces them together to find a story hidden in plain sight: an illustration of their shared history with an unexpected twist that will change all of their lives. Drawn together in their battle for the house, Emma and Bea are forced to confront the past while facing a future that challenges everything they believe about love, fate, and family. ~amazon.com

Review: Throughout the course of this novel you really feel for both Penny and Emma but your empathy is really low for Bea. You understand where she’s coming from but your frustration as a reader comes from her lack of wanting to see the other side.

Emma's doing the best she can raising Penny as a single mom but it's tough with managing the front desk at the American Hotel, she can't always be every where. Up until this year Penny has been reliable and amiable but she's rebelling in a way that Emma can't even imagine. Penny is thrown by the death of Henry, her inheritance and trying to get her OCD under control. She's also trying to fit in and find her way in a small town.

Things go downhill for Emma quickly between Bea coming in to town and fighting the will of Henry and then her ex suddenly shows up to spend time with Penny. Emma is starting to wonder if being if being positive all the time is advantageous. At times you want Emma to wake up and be more aggressive than passive. 

I’m not quite sure she ever saw Emma and Penny’s POV it she came around because she finally understood what Henry was telling her through her drawings.

Ms. Brenner has a way with her words that lets you feel like you are in the room with these characters. She transports you to the settings of her novels in a way that you smell the ocean. I enjoyed how she brought Penny's OCD into the story and how she showed how she struggled to keep it at bay and how at times she couldn't.

I loved every moment I spent reading this novel.


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