Anne Sullivan moves back to Potomac Point after the end of her marriage. Far from giving up a city career, as we see in other books about a retreat to a quiet town, Anne has never worked outside the home. The TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that she had a teen pregnancy and got married quickly to her college boyfriend, then devoted seventeen years to her family. Now, her ex-husband has moved on to another woman.

While the friendly local building contractor adapts the Cape Cod style home, Anne visits her grandmother Marie, who is in a care home due to the onset of dementia. She deals in a civil fashion with Richard Chase, the lawyer ex whose divorce isn’t final yet, but less so with his new acquisition Lauren, who has two young kids. But most of Anne’s focus is, as it has always been, her daughter Katy. Parenting styles obviously differ. This women’s fiction tale shows us three generations and how they got it right or got it wrong. From my own experience I can say that girls in their mid teens do not want parents running their lives and asking constant questions. Katy, uprooted from school, wishing for the impossible – her dad to come home - and with little say in her life, starts smoking and self-harming.

I have not read any previous books in the ‘Potomac Point’ series. The only locals we meet for any length are a gallery owner, Trudy, and the builder Dan Foley, who between them reawaken the artistic spirit Anne has abandoned. There’s a catty woman, but she is more of a token than an obstacle. In a sense this does not help us love the town – they live by the sea and Anne never takes her daughter boating, nor gives her an adopted pup to train, which would have solved a great many problems in my opinion. However, the lack of friendships or financial obligations, leaves Anne time to visit her fading grandmother and piece together the lady’s sad past romance she had previously never known.

I don’t like the way that both parents use Katy as a weapon to stab the other. Maybe this does happen but don’t tell me the self-aware teen doesn’t know it’s happening. And then her parents think it’s okay to spend time having deep conversations with Katy telling her how much potential she has and how they value her, while doing their best to make the other parent take her for the weekend. If TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that Anne and Marie were formed by their parents’ attitudes, Jamie Beck is showing us the universal truth that parents don’t always get life right - but children can survive the experience. This book entertained and absorbed me during a few lunchbreaks, and will appeal to women who don’t want a full-on second chance romance story, but like to address other issues in ongoing lives while knowing the potential for romance exists. We can all learn something, not least of which may be to develop our own talents.

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