In my imagination, I have pictured what it would be like to restore a lighthouse so someone could live there. First, the picture of the lighthouse on the cover drew me in and once I saw the blurb on the back of the book I knew I had to read this book. Dawn, the main character was restoring a lighthouse and there was a mystery.
I wasn’t disappointed. Occasionally when I read it takes me a few chapters to want to keep reading but the easy style of writing and description drew me in right away. I fell in love with Starlight Cove. It is the kind of community we dream of when we want to get away from the busy city world. I walked through the lighthouse step by step with the character and could picture every crevice and nook and cranny.
We have all felt the chill at one time or another at feeling like an outsider and not knowing why and Dawn was no different. In small communities all across America, people are judged by their families and their past and Dawn was too. Could she right the wrong that perhaps her families legacy had left to this small town? Could she prove the judgment against her family was misplaced?
It is a well-written mystery drawing a reader in, making them care about the characters and keeping you guessing to the very end whether judgments were misplaced. This is the first book I have read by Cynthia Ellingson but it won’t be my last.
Dawn Conners’s parents are famous for finding historic treasures, but she has a knack for losing things—her job, her boyfriend, and now, her reputation. Thanks to a mud-slinging exposé, Dawn’s late great-grandfather is assumed guilty of stealing silver from a century-old shipwreck. Hoping to clear his name, Dawn returns to Starlight Cove, her idyllic hometown on Lake Michigan, where the doomed vessel sleeps beneath the beam of a ramshackle lighthouse.
Her plan: remodel and sell the lighthouse while untangling the perplexing family mystery. Neither task is easy, especially once her well-meaning parents and the quirky locals—including nautical researcher and Starlight Cove’s most eligible bachelor, Kip Whittaker—get involved. Despite their attraction, Dawn is reluctant to trust Kip, or any of the close-knit townsfolk. But as she pieces together the truth, Dawn’s once-shuttered heart opens up. And if she’s willing, the lighthouse might guide her to a place she never expected to find, where the past entwines with a bright new beginning.
