The Guest Book by Marybeth Whalen
Publication Date: July 3, 2012
Publisher: Zondervan
Genre: Christian Fiction
ISBN: 978-0310334743*****This book brings me back to the days I spent in our rented Carolina beach house as a child. I remember reading guest book entries and thinking about the people who passed before me – who they were, where they were from, and what adventures they went on. I do recall seeing some wacky drawings in some of those guest books over the years, too! And, even though I still regularly visit North Carolina, I haven’t looked inside a guest book in many years. I honestly just forgot about it. So, when I saw this book for review through Amazon Vine (and then the digital copy on Netgalley), I snatched it up in a heartbeat.

Macy Dillon is a single mother to a five-year-old girl and nursing a broken heart while still grieving the loss of her larger-than-life father ten years prior. As a way to help the family move on, Macy’s mother suggests that the family return to one of their favorite places – Sunset Beach, North Carolina. In the rented beach house that they regularly visited so many years ago, Macy, her daughter, her mom, and her brother, confront the past in hopes of moving to a better future.

Macy immediately becomes obsessed with locating the boy she used to exchange pictures with in the guest book of her youth. Macy would draw a picture and the next year her family visited the house, a little boy would have responded to her picture with a picture of his own. While an interesting premise, I found it a bit farfetched that a single mother would be pining after a boy who drew her pictures each year in a guest book. But, it did seem to have a significant impact on her life, so I went with it. Once Macy arrives in Sunset Beach, suddenly men come out of the woodwork and all of them could potentially be The Artist of her youth. But who is it? Or has he moved on with his life altogether and forgotten Macy, too?

In the background of Macy’s search for her Artist is her mother, Brenda’s, journey of letting go of her deceased husband and embarking on a new stage of life. Max, Macy’s brother, is battling his own personal demons. He drowns his grief at the bottom of a bottle. But with the help of a new friend, Max may learn to find his own way again.

This is a quick read and I did enjoy it. If you can get past some of the unbelievable parts (who gets three men chasing after her immediately upon landing at a beach house for vacation?!) and just take it for what it is. Recommended.

*****