Narrated by Xe Sands
The Chesapeake Diaries series takes place in the lovely Maryland small town of St. Dennis, and That Chesapeake Summer is the 9th book in the series, where the 3rd of the Sinclair siblings finds his HEA. Popular self-help author Jamie Valentine finds herself drawn to St. Dennis after the death of her mother reveals a huge secret her parents had kept from her, something that turns her entire life and career on its edge. Under the guise of a working vacation, Jamie searches for the truth at the Inn at Sinclair Point, run by matriarch Grace Sinclair and her eldest, Dan. Dan is a widowed father of two teenagers, realistically “married” to his job of running the popular inn, which takes all his time and helps him forget the huge secret he has also carried since his wife died 8 years earlier.
The story has women’s fiction underpinnings – it’s largely about Jamie and her self-searching, almost mid-life crisis that induces severe writer’s block. She befriends Grace Sinclair, who is wheelchair bound while her broken leg heals. Many of the citizens of St. Dennis can trace their ancestry in the town back at least a century, and the Sinclairs run not only the inn but also the local paper, where Dan’s brother Ford is currently editor. Jamie hopes a search of the town archives will help her, so she spends a lot of time with Grace who has not coincidentally decided to organize the old issues of the paper and perhaps put up a historical exhibit of the photographs and articles.
Dan is almost a footnote to the story, and at the beginning he’s really a little grouchier and ruder to Jamie than I would have put up with. However, soon after their meeting, I also felt like Jamie was a bit of a butt-insky, which precipitated Dan’s attitude, so I was rooting for him to tell her off. Their eventual and inevitable relationship started off pretty rocky and frankly I felt it developed out of nothing more than they were of a similar age, and both single. I didn’t feel the spark from their uncertain beginning.
To avoid spoilers, I’ll just say the big reveals happen to the characters (and the reader) early in the book but they don’t share them with the public until close to the end. There were no major who-done-it mysteries – it was more a slice-of-life type of story, with an odd sprinkling of extra-sensory-perception-stuff, including the possible existence of “spirits” and The Eye, as in “she has The Eye” which was a sixth-sense thing. Since there wasn’t much made of this, I wondered if the earlier books went into more detail – either way, it didn’t really advance the plot and was almost more Deus Ex Machina which I found distracting. If you’re going to go with a paranormal theme, I think the world-building needs to be a little more explanatory, and it should not be the reason All Things Worked Out in the end.
Xe Sands is a great narrator, especially of women’s fiction/romance genre books. Her delivery is extremely natural, and although the book is all 3rd person point-of-view, she sounds more like she is just telling you a story. The book doesn’t have any exaggerated emotions – no laugh-out-loud moments, no tissues needed – it’s just a straight narrative of the events, with only a few emotional moments, all delivered appropriately. Sands has a terrific register for males, giving the impression of a lower voice, and she also does age-appropriate sounds/voices for all the characters – teens, elderly, middle-age – making it very easy to follow the action based on who is speaking. Her narration lifted the book above the average quality of the prose – I’m not sure if I’d read it in print, I would have enjoyed it as much.
Melinda
Narration: A
Book Content: C+
Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in
Violence Rating: None
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Tantor Audio
That Chesapeaks Summer was provided to AudioGals by Tantor Audio for a review.
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