Title: The Chesapeake Diaries: Home Again
Author: Mariah Stewart
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 27, 2010
Paperback: 464 pages
ISBN: 978-0345520357
Genre: Fiction, Romance

From the Publisher:

Dallas MacGregor is living the Hollywood dream. At thirtysomething, she’s an award-winning actress beloved by the public and bound for even bigger success. But when her soon-to-be-ex-husband, producer Emilio Baird, is caught in a sex scandal, Dallas’s charmed life turns tabloid nightmare. Determined to shield her young son, Cody, from the ugly uproar, Dallas seeks refuge in sleepy St. Dennis, Maryland—the Chesapeake Bay town where her happiest childhood days were spent.

Reunited with her boisterous great-aunt, Dallas wants nothing more than to leave her Hollywood days behind. And when she crosses paths with local veterinarian Grant Wyler, her high school summer love, she finds he’s everything she remembers, and more—and that the spark is still there. But Dallas’s promising new life takes a troubling turn when the unimaginable happens and she finds herself living a mother’s worst nightmare—and Emilio storms into St. Dennis to save the day, along with his damaged career. Trapped in the unwanted glare of the limelight once again, Dallas discovers that it’s coolheaded Grant who is willing to risk everything to protect her and her son, and to secure the future they were always meant to share.

My Review:

A Hollywood actress hounded by paparazzi due to her soon to be ex-husband’s scandalous affairs flees to her hometown to protect herself and her child is not exactly a new setting for a novel, yet Mariah Stewart pulls it off magnificently in Home Again, the second book in her series, The Chesapeake Diaries. Home Again is a stand-alone novel and the reader is drawn to the small town of St. Dennis where Dallas MacGregor brings her 6-year-old son while her divorce is finalized and the scandal blows over in Hollywood. Naturally, it would not be a romance novel if Dallas did not meet up with an old flame and there is an element of fear and tension in the novel, but to say more would give the ending away. Stewart sets the scene beautifully and creates a Hollywood actress who is relatable, her precocious and adorable son Cody, kindhearted Grant, and her brilliant Aunt Beryl, who happens to be my absolute favorite character in the book. Home Again accurately describes the book, for the reader learns a lot about St. Dennis, crabbing, the locals, and is an all around delightful and at times suspenseful novel. I enjoyed reading Home Again and look forward to the third book in The Chesapeake Diaries, Almost Home Again. I would recommend Home Again to anyone looking for a slower paced, enjoyable and descriptive book.

About the Author:

Mariah Stewart is the award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty-seven novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. A native of Hightstown, New Jersey, she lives in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania, with her husband, their daughter, and their dogs.

For more reviews of the book, please follow the book tour.

I received a complimentary copy of Home Again by Mariah Stewart from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.