blue jeans and coffee beans by joanne demaio

Sounds idyllic, right? Well it is until there’s a misunderstanding that could have a lasting effect.

He’s a busy guy but soon wants to spend what little free time he has with Penny. Frank also is co-owner of The Boathouse, an event location in Addison. I loved how their romance unfolded as they had such a unique experience of getting to know each other in secret (Penny couldn’t be seen in public during the contest). Frank, part-time handyman at the lake cabins where Penny is staying, is kind of awkward but Penny can immediately see he’s a really nice guy with mannerisms that make him seem like he’s from another era. The promotion will end when someone guesses correctly or on Christmas Eve when Penny discloses her whereabouts.Īlthough Penny wasn’t sure leaving the creature comforts of her apartment in town was a good idea her mind is changed when she meets Frank. She’ll stay at an unidentified location and post a daily photo and clue for residents to guess where in New England Penny is staying. Her boss has assigned a publicity campaign for the weeks leading up to Christmas. Reluctant in that she really doesn’t want to travel but she loves to help arrange trips for other people. With this visit to Addison we meet Penny, a reluctant travel agent. It’s a quaint and charming town that always makes me wish I lived there. My take: In her new novel Joanne DeMaio takes readers back to Addison, Connecticut – the setting for a few of her previous novels.

Published: September 2017 – Joanne DeMaio.

To the backdrop of seaside cottages and a boarded-up beach hangout, to the soundtrack of whispering lagoon grasses and a vintage jukebox, Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans asks if we can really design our own lives, or if our fate lies somewhere in the stars. But can Maris ever really go back? Can these beach friends ever be who they were to each other all those summers ago? Now one of her circle is dead another unemployed and struggling in a tenuous marriage another regretting a fateful decision while one is missing a mother, ever seeking a connection she longs for.

Until fried clam dinners and carousel rides beckon a lost love. Her design career had become a shell, curving around her like the intricate whorls of a conch, shielding her until now. One of uncovering family secrets while settling her father's estate, one of inheriting a forlorn German shepherd, one of reconnecting with old friends on a weathered boardwalk, beneath starlit skies on a beach nestled in a crook of the Connecticut coast. But a forgotten home movie tucked inside a dusty attic box leads to an unexpected summer. After years of pursuing a denim design career, Maris Carrington never imagined trading her Chicago studio for a New England shingled cottage. New York Times Bestseller Escape to Stony Point, cuff your jeans and walk along the water's edge in this nostalgic story bringing old friends, and their lives, back to the sea.

Blue jeans and coffee beans by joanne demaio