Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes | Book Review

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Lily Bristol arrives at a luxurious resort in Sardinia for the grand opening of her newest home furnishing store on the Emerald Coast. She’s a successful business woman with an international chain of stores from San Francisco to Milan. Thirty-two and newly divorced, she’s ready to handle things on her own. At least until her private butler, Enzo, escorts her to a beautiful suite where she notices a suspiciously familiar pair of men’s slippers and shaving kit.
Lily is horrified. Her ex-husband Oliver moved out of their restored Connecticut farmhouse six months ago, but they booked this trip when they were trying to save their marriage and never cancelled the reservation. Oliver, a food critic for the New York Times, is here covering Sardinia’s hottest new restaurant. The only other available room is the adjoining suite; and worse, Oliver isn’t alone. He’s brought a twenty-something named Angela with him.
Lily is determined to make do and enlists Enzo to find her a suitable man. But it’s not as easy to find new love as they both expected. When Lily and Oliver find themselves alone on a very important night, they turn to each other. Sparks begin to fly, but can they be together without breaking each other’s hearts?
Set on the glamorous Italian island, Emerald Coast is a touching and humorous story about marriage and the difficulty of finding love and happiness at the same time.

Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes is the sort of book that isn’t in my typical wheelhouse, but that I like. Still, I don’t often pursue women’s contemporary fiction. I guess that’s because I have so much other things on my shelf to read. Friends, I regret this. Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes was SUCH a page turner. I genuinely enjoyed reading this book and actually think I am going to try and read more books aimed at adults.

Anita Hughes’s latest book follows two main characters, Lily Bristol and Oliver, who are divorced from each other. The book opens with Lily checking into a Sardinia resort on the Emerald Coast. She goes to her room and sees a man’s things. She then discovers that Oliver is in the room that she booked, with another woman. So, Lily gets everything sorted out and ends up in a room next door to Oliver and his new woman. The two try to avoid each other – Lily is busy with the opening of her home furnishings store. However, it is inevitable that they interact. Lucky for Lily, she’s spending time with a romantic possibility too.

Lily is totally an adult character that I can sort of relate to. She’s absent minded in that she’s always losing her wallet. Also, she’s hard working and ambitious. Her different stores are her dream and it is so cool to see her killing it. I loved that as far as her marriage went, she was the breadwinner. She also handles the divorce so well. But, we see that she is kind of guarded and well, she was hurt but what she perceived Oliver doing. I found Lily to be a character that I really sympathized for, so I just flew through Emerald Coast.

Oliver, Lily’s ex husband also gets his own point of view chapters. At first, I thought I was going to flat out hate Oliver. However, I ended up understanding his perspective too. He is a food critic. His job puts him in contact with all kinds of people and sometimes women seem interested in him. So, at one point Lily gets jealous of one woman and signs lead to Oliver’s infidelity. Getting to Oliver’s perspective though, we see it is a misunderstanding until both are driven to do things they cannot come back from.

Emerald Coast is such a compelling read! The setting is excellent and really is a major part of the book. FYI, this book is perfect for your beach bag. I loved how we saw the whole of Lily and Oliver’s relationship as there are flashbacks throughout the whole book that go over how the two met. Then it goes into just how their relationship develops and then why it ended. Ultimately though, the book ends on an optimistic, romantic note and I just loved it. I really want to read more by Hughes after reading this book.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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