I'll Be Your Blue Sky

I'll Be Your Blue Sky by Marisa de los Santos
Fiction
2018 William Morrow
Finished on May 26, 2018
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

This New York Times bestselling author revisits the characters from her beloved novels Loved Walked In and Belong to Me in this captivating, beautifully written drama involving family, friendship, secrets, sacrifice, courage, and true love. For fans of Jojo Moyes, Elin Hilderbrand, and Nancy Thayer.

On the weekend of her wedding, Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron. During the course of a single conversation, Edith gives Clare the courage to do what she should have done months earlier: break off her engagement to her charming--yet overly possessive--fiance.

Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died--and has given her another gift. Nestled in crepe myrtle and hydrangea and perched at the marshy edge of a bay in a small seaside town in Delaware, Blue Sky House now belongs to Clare. Though the former guest house has been empty for years, Clare feels a deep connection to Edith inside its walls, which are decorated with old photographs taken by Edith and her beloved husband, Joseph.

Exploring the house, Clare finds two mysterious ledgers hidden beneath the kitchen sink. Edith, it seems, was no ordinary woman--and Blue Sky House no ordinary place. With the help of her mother, Vivian, her surrogate mother, Cornelia Brown, and her former boyfriend and best friend, Dev Tremain, Clare begins to piece together the story of Blue Sky House--a decades-old mystery more complex and tangled than she could have imagined. As she peels back layers of Edith's life, Clare discovers a story of dark secrets, passionate love, heartbreaking sacrifice, and incredible courage. She also makes startling discoveries about herself: where she's come from, where she's going, and what--and who--she loves.

Shifting between the 1950s and the present, and told in the alternating voices of Edith and Clare, I'll Be Your Blue Sky is vintage Marisa de los Santos--an emotionally evocative novel that probes the deepest recesses of the human heart and illuminates the tender connections that bind our lives.

It's been 10 years since I discovered Love Walked In and Belong To Me, both of which I loved and have on my "keeper shelf" for future re-reading. When I received an ARC of I'll Be Your Blue Sky, not only was I was excited to get a new book by Marisa de los Santos, but I was thrilled to learn that she had written a third installment in her Love Walked In trilogy, which continues with the lives of Clare, Cornelia, Teo, and Dev. Part comfort read, part mystery, this new novel pulled me right in from the opening pages. I love the author's lyrical prose, which I have to admit felt somewhat overdone in the opening chapters, but became less prevalent as the story progressed. I also enjoy her attention to domestic detail, which is reminiscent of Elizabeth Berg's popular novels, which I've also enjoyed for many years. I'll Be Your Blue Sky is told in alternating points-of-view, as well as time periods, both of which are seamlessly interwoven and equally enjoyable.  As soon as I finished this delightful story, I knew the previous two novels (reviewed here) would wind up in my stack of re-reads for 2019. I think they'll be just perfect for some post-holiday reading.