A Beach Wish by Shelley Noble (Review by Bruna Morais)

I devoured this book over the course of two days. It is such a pleasant story and the whole time I was reading it, I wished I could transport myself to Wind Chime Beach. Shelley Noble did an amazing job describing the city and the lovely hippie commune around it. Zoe’s mom, Jenny, passed away and left a letter with her last wishes: she wants Zoe to spread her ashes at Wind Chime Beach. Zoe has no idea where this place is and how her mom knows about it. As soon as Zoe gets to this small city in New England, she meets Floret and Henry, a friendly couple who had met Jenny back in the days when she was an adventurous teenager living in the hippie commune. Zoe had no idea the woman she knew as her uptight mother was such a free-living teenager in her youth. Jenny left Zoe a letter explaining part of the story. She had fallen in love when she was younger and became pregnant. Zoe’s sister that she never met before lives in this city, as does Zoe’s real father. The letter stuns her. She wants to meet her real father, her sister, and other family that she had never heard of. But apparently her father is not very happy to meet his “new” daughter – the spitting image of the woman that once broke his heart and ran away from him, leaving him miserable. Her father’s mother is also not pleased about meeting Zoe. Her grandmother is the most powerful woman in the city; she despises the hippie commune and would do anything to get rid of it. Despite the huge surprise that changes her life forever, Zoe finds herself bonding with her sister and nieces. She also becomes fond of the city and the people she meets there. But will she be able to make her dad forget about the past and accept her as his daughter? What happened in the past that makes Zoe’s grandma hate her so much? The story has drama all over it: an old fight between families, Zoe’s new family, forbidden young love, and more. But at the same time, it’s a light story about forgiveness and letting things go.