Book Review | Harbour Lights, by Sherryl Woods

Harbour Lights: A Second Chance at Love

Their complicated past won’t stop these two from finding their happy ending

Chesapeake Shores hasn’t yet failed to deliver a feel-good story with lovable characters. The third installment of the heartwarming series following the O’Briens family in the picturesque town of Chesapeake Shores, Harbour Lights has big brother Kevin in the spotlight.

Disclaimer: If you aren’t familiar with the series and haven’t read the first two books, this review isn’t for you. I recommend checking out my review of The Inn at the Eagle Point, the first book in the series. I didn’t call that article “Are You Ready For Your New Favourite Book Series” for nothing!

Prepare for surprises!

I find it impossible to read Chesapeake Shores without comparing it to the Hallmark show. After all, I watched the whole series on Netflix before I started reading the books. If you haven’t watched the TV show yet, I highly recommend it.

The books are full of unexpected pairings and surprising events for those who watched the show! I expected Kevin to be similar to the TV-Kevin I knew. But he isn’t… and in the book, he doesn’t come alone either, he has a delightful young son, Davy. After his brief appearance in Flowers on Main, I wasn’t expecting him to be the protagonist so soon. I wondered how he could be the protagonist after the events in that story, and I even questioned myself if perhaps he wouldn’t have a book of his own. Well, it didn’t take long for my questions to be answered.

In Harbour Lights, Kevin is done with the army. Once his son was born, he decided to leave the special forces and focus on his family, so he became a paramedic. His wife, however, didn’t see things the same way. She couldn’t leave the army like her husband did, not even for her family. When she was killed on duty, her death was a devastating blow for Kevin. Not even their baby was enough motivation to keep the paramedic going. So Kevin left his job and returned to his father’s home in Chesapeake Shores, where he would have family to help him care for baby Davy.

But it’s been over a year since his wife passed away, Davy is about to turn two, and Kevin feels like it’s time to start living again. Or rather, the O’Briens’ hints begin to get too loud to ignore. Kevin doesn’t have a job, hobbies, or plans for the future. He can’t keep on not living like this.

When he sees a woman in need of help setting up her bookstore in town, he decides to help. Not because she’s super pretty, he’s not ready for romance, but because it’s something to do. Maybe that will be enough to quieten his family while he decides which direction to take with his life. He couldn’t have foreseen how important that beautiful woman would soon become to him.

Therapy could have helped!

I was surprised to find a Kevin utterly different from the one I knew. In Harbour Lights, He’s still grieving his wife and almost refusing to live. Over a year after her death, he still can’t find the motivation to get his life sorted, not even for his adorable little boy, Davy. At times, Kevin got on my nerves with all his complaints, refusals, and closing himself in a shell.

I couldn’t help but wonder if he was depressed. Grief is such a tough feeling to deal with, especially when there are complex feelings related to the loved one you lost. It’s not easy to lose someone, and the aftermath of grief can be messy. It made me think of how likely it is for a young man to find help in a case like this. He moved back to his father’s house to have support from his family, but what about his emotional state?

The family kept their distance for a while, but when they saw that he wasn’t making any progress, they started asking for him to move on. What if he wasn’t ready? What if he hadn’t processed his grief? In fact, from reading Harbour Lights, I get the impression he never did properly process his grief and all the feelings he had about his deceased wife. He just buried them deeper and deeper and moved on. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people had access to therapy and it wasn’t such a big taboo?

Kevin’s meddlesome family got him to do something, and ultimately, they led him out of his funk, but perhaps a therapist would’ve been more helpful. Maybe a therapist would still be more helpful and could ensure he was a better father to Davy and a better partner.

Who needs an enemy when you have a narcissistic BFF?

There’s no romance with only one character. Shanna doesn’t exist in the TV show, which again surprised me; on the other hand, Sarah, Kevin’s wife in the Hallmark adaptation, doesn’t exist in Harbour Lights at all; the two of them are completely different from each other. Shanna has a complicated past, but she’s keen on starting fresh.

She’s a book lover (who can never resist a book-lover?) using her passion to bring a dream to reality: she’s opening a bookshop in the lovely small town of Chesapeake Shores. Just like Kevin, she doesn’t think she’s ready for romance, but the heart always knows better than the brain…

Shanna has an unexpected problem, though, with her best friend. Well, to be fair, the best friend isn’t exactly portrayed as a problem, but she acts like one. Although she’s barely in the book, Laurie, the best friend, got on my nerves several times. Whenever she made an appearance, she belittled Shanna’s efforts and moaned about her own troubles. I get it; she’s going through her own problems, but I would expect a best friend to listen a bit more and judge a bit less. Who needs enemies with best friends that make you question your every decision? I felt sorry for Shanna.

A lovely series

As usual in the Chesapeake Shores books, you’ll encounter many of your favourite characters. If you’re following the series, you’ll be well acquainted with the little town and several of the recurring characters by the third book. All the O’Briens and some of the town residents are back. I love reading long series that have different protagonists for each book while still bringing back the people we grow to love and care for. I’m always delighted to see how their lives are going, and I enjoy following the development of the secondary characters and the town as much as I enjoy reading the main story.

This time around, quite a bit of time has passed between books two and three, but I found it hard to see how that affected the other characters’ lives. Logically there is a gap of over two years between the books (Davy wasn’t born during the events of Flowers on Main); but apart from Davy, everything else seems to have progressed no more than a few months. That left me feeling a bit lost at times, but I decided to brush that aside and not try to make sense of it.

Harbour Lights is a light romance. The plot isn’t very dense, and I sometimes wish it had moved a little bit faster, but the characters are lovely, the town is enchanting, and the story is enjoyable.

I don’t know who will be the protagonists in the next book, but I hope it’s either Susie and Mack or the O’Brien parents. The next story is set during Christmas, and I look forward to reading it during the holiday season.

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