Book Review: Beachcombers by Nancy Thayer

Beachcombers is one of those books that I am ambivalent about. I think Mrs. Thayer is a talented author. She has great character development and writes with a strong sense of place when describing Nantucket, the setting of the novel. I was drawn into the story quickly, and enjoyed a lot of it.

However, after about halfway through the book, I became quite irritated when the unmarried characters slept together in almost every chapter and seemed to think nothing of it. This just ruined the plot for me. I know I will be considered a prude by some of you, but frankly, I think a romantic novel is so much more enjoyable when there is purity and respect between the characters. When a woman easily jumps into a relationship with a married man (as it happened in this book), that saddens me. I was hoping she would turn out to be smarter than that. There were some tender moments, but as I already said, these moments were obscured by the frequent “encounters" between the two in this relationship as well as the other couples in the book.

I almost didn’t finish the book, but I wanted to see how it all turned out. There are enough interesting places in the plot to keep one’s interest, but if you want a good, clean book, you will not like this one.

I give Beachcombers a one out of five stars.

(I received this book from Pump Up Your Book! for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)