Emerald Heart

by Grace Greene

Welcome to The Emerald Heart Hotel – The sign on the big gate is faded, and the gate is usually locked because the hotel closed two years ago when Mignon King lost her husband. His death, on top of the loss of their daughter many years before, has Mignon mired in grief. But it’s more than grief that has her trapped. Before she can move on, she must decide what to do with the hotel she and her husband owned and managed for more than two decades. She lives there alone with her dog, Galahad, though even Mignon would hardly call it living. She wants to be happy again, to find a new way forward, but she’s stuck.

Her longtime friend, Dominick, a real estate agent, wants her to sell the hotel property. Old hotel aside, the acreage alone in the town of Emerald Isle and fronting on Bogue Sound, is valuable and will bring many offers, but that’s also part of the problem. Mignon loves the Emerald Heart property and feels responsible for it and wants to protect her husband’s memory. What might new owners do with the property? What might they destroy?

On a strange day in early September, a man shows up unexpectedly on her dock. He’s charming. And he’s interested in the Emerald Heart property. On that same day, her long-estranged sister-in-law, Jeanette, returns, and Mignon’s troubles magnify as Jeannette’s arrival stirs up old anger and creates a volatile, emotional mix. Disquieting things begin to happen around the property, worrying Mignon. She knows she must make a decision, but she doesn’t know how to break with the past and move forward.

Dominick, Blake, Jeanette—who stands to gain if Mignon decides to sell? Who can she trust?

And the past . . . its hold on her is so strong that she’s not even sure she can trust herself.

• ASIN: B0CM7RF1X5
• Publish Date: 5 December 2023 (first published 4 December 2023)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Kersey Creek Books
• Format: eBook (Kindle)
• Pages: 328
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Sometimes Life Just Breaks You. If you find yourself in this place, this is the kind of book you *need* to read. It will hurt. You will cry. But maybe, just maybe, you'll find a modicum of catharsis here too.

 

If you haven't found yourself in this place - yet - read this too. Maybe get a better understanding of the "bitter old woman recluse" in your life. Because let's face it - we *all* either have one of these or had one of these or very likely will have one of these in our lives at some point. And to be clear, it isn't just women, as men could very easily be shown to be dealing with identical things as are shown in this book. But this particular tale happens to be a women's fiction tale focused on a woman and her relationships, and thus the description above.

 

Told with Greene's usual great care to characterization and description, you're both going to feel like you're there on Emerald Isle with these characters *and* you're going to feel their issues as though there were your own. Because, again, Greene shows us that no matter where we are in life, at some point nearly all of us will see ourselves in at least one of these characters and what they are going through in theirs.

 

And there, there is where Greene truly shows Grace ( ;) ) and hope.

 

Very much recommended.