Book Review: Edgewater Road by Shelley Shepard Gray

Edgewater Road (The Rumors in Ross County #1). Shelley Shepard Gray. Blackstone Publishing (2022). 284 pages. Genre:  Romantic Suspense, Christian Fiction.

First Lines of Prologue: "'That's her, boss, ' Bo said under the cover of a large black umbrella. 'That there is Jennifer Smiley.'"

Summary:  John Lincoln Bennett lived next door to Ginny Smiley his whole life.  He often heard about her only granddaughter, Jennifer, although he had never met her.  When Ginny died, she left her house to Jennifer. Ginny always looked out for Lincoln and because of that he felt a responsibility to make sure Jennifer had whatever she needed. 

Jennifer Smiley has fond memories of her grandmother and feels honored that she left the house to her.  She looks forward to making the house her own and starting a new life.  She soon discovers that included with the house is group of men who live next door and seem to feel obligated to look out for her.  She is intrigued to learn that they work for her neighbor, Lincoln Bennett.  

Lincoln finds himself immediately attracted to Jennifer.  But they are from different worlds.  Jennifer is sweet and innocent and always immaculately dressed.  Lincoln has been to prison and now helps ex-cons get on their feet.  Will Jennifer be able to overlook his past and get to know this man who has a heart for others? 

My thoughts:  Shelley Shepard Gray is an author I have enjoyed reading.  In the past she has written Amish fiction, romantic suspense and historical fiction.  Edgewater Road was hard to classify.  Before reading it I thought it would fit under the romantic suspense genre.  But after reading it, I think I would classify it more as romance with some suspense.  As it turns out, the book was a little rough around the edges.  Even so, I did find lots to like about it.

I liked Jennifer Smiley from the beginning.  She is embarking on a new adventure - that of owning and caring for a home.  Moving to her grandmother's house involves her leaving the area she had been living in.  This takes courage. I appreciated the way the author revealed her vulnerability, but also showed her choosing to do uncomfortable things because they were right.  Her initial distrust of Lincoln and his friends was realistic.  But, as she was tempted to write them off because of their history, she also reminded herself of the way they had treated her.  They had helped her without being asked and each one of them had been polite and kind. 

It took me a bit longer to warm up to Lincoln Bennett.  He seemed to be a bit cold which didn't line up with his attraction to Jennifer.  But, as the story went on, he was shown to be a man who had a heart to help others.  He was definitely a flawed person, but he was trying to live a better life. 

Jennifer had a lot to learn about her grandmother.  As she began going through her belongings, she found letters and other papers that alarmed her.  Lincoln had known Ginny well, but was not sure how much he should reveal to Jennifer.  He thought maybe it was best to just keep her in the dark and let her remember her grandmother as she knew her.  Jennifer struggled to decide whether to learn the truth or remain innocent. 

And there is some suspense, but it doesn't happen until after the midway point in the book.  It was caused by a bad decision Jennifer made.  By this point in the book we knew the characters pretty well, which made it more suspenseful.

I always appreciate the thread of hope and faith that run through Shelley Shepard Gray's books and both of those were present here.  Although the faith element wasn't strong.  Other themes I appreciated were second chances, not judging a person by their past, reconciliation, friendship and kindness.  

As I mentioned earlier, the book seemed a bit rough around the edges.  Going in I was expecting a suspense book. However, because the suspense part didn't happen until late in the book, I struggled to see where the book was going for the first half.  There were also some inconsistencies that bothered me.  For instance, at one point Jennifer was making a meal for Lincoln and then Lincoln left before eating it.  This wasn't shown to be done on purpose, but rather seemed like bad editing.  It was interesting to read the Acknowledgements at the end of the book where the author stated:

"Some books seem to write themselves, but this wasn't one of them.  For Edgewater Road, I needed as much help and support as I could get."

She also thanks several people for helping her "fine-tune the beginning of this book multiple times". 

The second half of the book seemed to smooth out and come together.  I ended up liking the characters and appreciated the growth in them as well as the direction the story was going.  Overall, having enjoyed the author in the past and liking the story well enough, I look forward to reading the next book in the series and hope that some of the rough edges get smoothed out.

Quotes:

"Caroline was her mother. Had he expected her to want to move heaven and earth to be by her daughter's side? Yes.  Yes, he had.  Then again, life wasn't full of people wanting to step up all the time."