No one ever said going back home would be easy, and Maddy Bainbridge knows that first hand.  Fifteen years ago Maddy couldn’t think of anything else but getting away from Paradise Point, New Jersey and everything in the small town, including her mother, Rose, a woman who always seemed to be critical and disapproving of her.  Now Maddy is a single mother herself, living in Seattle, Washington; but making ends meet is getting harder and harder.  Needing to gather her resources, Maddy does the unthinkable.  She moves back home with a promise of profit-sharing in the lucrative bed and breakfast, Candlelight Inn, which her mother owns and runs.  Walking through an emotional minefield of memories and unforgotten hurts, Maddy tries to understand her mother and her actions.   

If it weren’t for bad luck, the O’Malley’s would have no luck at all.  On the other side of town, Aidan O’Malley is having trouble coming to terms with the fact that O’Malley’s Bar & Grill probably won’t be in business for longer than five more years.  Not really surprised, Aidan takes a glance back over his life.  After the death of his parents, Aidan and his brother Billy lived with their uncaring and emotionally cold grandmother, Irene.  A few years back, during a terrible fire, his brother Billy lost his life, and Aidan was critically wounded.  The only thing ever to turn out well was his daughter, Kelly.  Smart, self-sufficient, and born knowing what to do, Kelly is the light of his life and his best friend.  He would do anything for her, and that includes bidding in an online auction for a Russian teakettle.  Kelly wants it for her one-hundred-year old great grandmother, Irene; and while Aidan knows that nothing would make the old woman happy or love them, he’s going to get the kettle for Kelly.  Losing the auction, Aidan e-mails the winner, still hoping to get the item, and finds himself flirting, in e-mail messages, with the winner.  Who turns out to be Maddy Bainbridge. 

When the two realize that they know each other, and the circumstances that may surround the Russian teakettle, they decide to meet.  Being with someone has never been so effortless, and Maddy and Aidan feel the attraction immediately.  Are either willing to take a chance?   

SHORE LIGHTS is a very poignant story that touched my heart in many ways.  The deep and emotional characters with their inner conflicts made the story very realistic.  They faced problems that real people have to contend with, and that helped me sympathize with them and made me want to cheer them on!  Each individual character has their own personality, which helps enrich the story, and instead of the oddball, but cookie-cutter secondary characters, you get multi-dimensional identities, which help establish a true sense of family and friends. 

There are two sides to any story, and Rose has her reasons.  Have you ever said something that you didn’t mean?  Or said something that was taken the wrong way?  That happens a lot to Maddy and Rose, and part of what makes this story so wonderful is watching them start to communicate and listen to what the other is saying.  They allow themselves to let down their guard and open up to the love that is there, waiting for them.   

There is very little that I didn’t like about SHORE LIGHTS, but there was something.  Maggie’s four-year-old little girl, Hannah, ends up with Aidan’s one-hundred-year old grandmother’s memories.  It was a bit weird.  I usually like paranormal aspects to my story, but it’s never explained properly or to my satisfaction.  Hannah and Irene have nothing in common except for the samovar, the Russian teapot, and that wasn’t enough, in my mind, to form a connection.  Each time I would read about the connection between them, I would be yanked out of the story.  Fortunately, this story line started to take off in the last third of the story.  However, this line is also the reason why I’m not giving this story a 5-plug rating.