Customer Reviews

Beach Roses

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Four women of various ages, from different walks-of-life, with assorted personal issues, are thrown together in a breast cancer support group each was reluctant to participate in. As their individual troubles (aside from the cancer) unravel, and their pasts are revealed, they unexpectedly help each other make journeys of resolution, forgiveness and self-sufficiency. They each learn to prioritize their lives and move forward in positive directions.

I love stories of women who would otherwise have nothing in common make a connection and develop reliable and strong friendships!

Rita Blair Rollins has no idea why Doc Hastings thinks she is qualified to lead a women's breast cancer support group. She figures they will soon find out just how unqualified she is and find someone else. But being the kind soul she is, she leaps to the challenge. She knows too that this is just one more step in an anonymous benefactor donating money for a much-needed Women's Health Center on Martha's Vineyard.

Katie Gillette is an American pop princess who has taken the music world by storm. Most of her material has been covers of her mothers songs, her mother being a huge star in the 70s. Her father, who helped make her mother a star, has done the same with Katie. After a long time trying to get Katie booked in Central Park, he succeeds in a booking for the 4th of July. Katie should be thrilled. But she isn't. How can she tell her father she won't be able to perform? How can she tell him that she is not only pregnant but also has breast cancer? To get away from it all, she leaves the Big Apple for Martha's Vineyard, eventually reconciling with her reclusive mother who lives there.

Hannah has lived on Martha's Vineyard for years moving there after a shameful incident has made her give up her dream of becoming a doctor. She is married with three children, including one rebellious teenager. A schoolteacher, Hannah's marriage has been troubled due to her husband's distance and she has struck up a friendship with the school principal. She has her hands full with her family and her radiation treatments, but she really hopes for more than friendship with the principal.

Faye is a successful business woman from Boston whose cancer has returned. She is sure this time it will be fatal. Before she dies she wants to find the son who she hasn't heard from in 10 years. He fled their Martha's Vineyard beach house, blaming himself for a family tragedy. Needing some time for herself, she leaves Boston for the beach house, and all its memories. She is shocked to find herself face to face with the woman she blames for breaking up her marriage.

These four very different women forge a friendship and help each other through many different battles in addition to their breast cancer. Jean Stone has written a real pageturner. I absolutely couldn't put it down. This is the first book I've read by this author and it certainly won't be the last. Reminiscent of books by authors such as Kristin Hannah, Luanne Rice, and Barbara Delinsky, this book will also appeal to romance readers who like that happily-ever-after ending.

An anonymous benefactor is willing to contribute to a wellness center if the residents of Martha's Vineyard show they want it. Doctor Hastings comes up with the idea of a breast cancer support group to show how much the center is needed and asks Rita Blair-Rollins to be the head of it. She reluctantly agrees because she wants what is best to help see her three charges through their ordeals.

Katie is a teen-age rock star who won't start treatment until she gives birth to her baby; her father, who molded her career, doesn't want to recognize his daughter's different priorities. Hannah, has to emotionally support her weak husband and wild fifteen-year old daughter while she is undergoing chemotherapy. Faye, a Boston businesswoman, thinks she has nothing to live for now that her cancer has reoccurred. These four women share their trials and triumphs and in the process form a bond that can never be broken.

If the audience seeks a happily ever ending, BEACH ROSES is not the book to read. However, the plot provides courage and hope when survival seems dimmer than a black hole. These intrepid women cannot ignore their troubles, but find faith with one another and some other caring friends. Jean Stone writes a poignant drama that focuses on human triumph during the most traumatic faults and frailties.

Harriet Klausner

I downloaded Beach Roses to my Kindle. I thought I was getting a good deal...nope. Remember, you get what you pay for. This book, on my Kindle, had so many typo errors, reading about one character and the next line is about another character with no spaces between the 2. There were dashes between a word that was not needed. When I got to the 3rd time where I was reading of one character and the next line is about another, I quit.

How can you follow a book when you're reading of a lady riding in a car with her husband and the next line reads about a gal packing up a diaper bag???

Not sure if this is the way the actual book reads or if it's just the Kendle adition. But, more downloads such as this will finding me giving my Kindle a heave ho.

Good fast read. Author makes characters and surroundings very real. Thought ending was predictable with everyone living happily ever after. I am not sure if it is was me or what but I somehow confused the characters at times. May have just been me. Good insight on breast cancer and the real feelings of those who have it.

Beach Roses by Jean Stone was one of those books with the type of story I love. Needless to say I really enjoyed it - it might have been a bit heavy for the Christmas season but that didn't deter me in the least. It's a sappy story but rich in the meaning of hope and moving forward.

Beach Roses takes place on Martha's Vineyard and follows the lives of three women with breast cancer: Katie, Faye, Hannah and Rita; the woman asked to run a support group for them even though she's never had cancer herself. She doesn't really want to run this group but she'll do pretty much anything for Doc Hastings so she agrees. Thus begins the journey that these women take that leaves them with the knowledge that sometimes it's those we least expect to be there that are. They pull us from the deepest ends of sorrow and make our hearts lighter even if just by a little bit.

Katie is a rock star who at just over twenty years old finds she has breast cancer and is pregnant on top of that. She has to decide to do what's best for her baby and herself. She is hit with a lot as she learns of betrayals from those she thought were the very people who cared about her. Will she learn to stand on her own feet and fight back? Will she be able to mend past relationships and learn to love again?

Hannah is a housewife who is harboring secrets of her own from her younger years. Hannah is one of those women who is always so concerned about caring for others that she forgets that she needs some tender loving herself. She is also the one woman in the group with the most advanced stage of cancer. Will she be around to see her kids grow up? Will she ever be able to realize her own dreams?

Faye could be considered the stuck up one of the bunch. This is her second round with breast cancer and she feels that this time is the end. She is also the most standoffish - she really doesn't want to get involved with all of this. Faye is also living with demons of her own from her past to do with her children - one of which she doesn't even know where to find him. Will she open herself up to the group - to these women? Will she find her son and mend the fences broken between them?

Rita was the one I liked the least although I did like her determination in protecting these women once she got to know them. She also really opened herself up throughout the story to these women and I liked that. However, she's done a lot of things that she isn't proud of and unfortunately for her one of them hits her in the face when she begins running the support group. Will she face up to what she did? Will she be forgiven?

This is a heartwarming story of the friendships and bonds that women form; sometimes when they least expect it. These women bonded over cancer but then it became so much more. It became about their families, hopes, dreams and the sharing of their innermost beings - those you just don't often share with others. They supported each other through it all and it really turned out to be a story which warmed the heart and offered hope and love - I so enjoyed this book!