The House on Biscayne Bay by Chanel Cleeton(Review by Shantell Krystal)

Rating 4/5 stars

This novel is a captivating story of 2 families that living in the same house but in different time periods. We start with Anna and her husband Robert who move to South Florida to build a glamorous estate in Biscayne Bay called Marbrisa. Anna is none too thrilled about the sheer size of the home, but knows it makes her husband happy, so is supportive of his endeavour. The story is told in alternating ‘timeline’ chapters and in the next chapter we meet our second main character – Carmen. Carmen has recently lost her parents and with no family in Havana, she goes to live with her sister Carolina and her husband Asher in Florida at Marbrisa. Both Anna and Carmen discover that appearances are not what they seem, and how a scandal can change everything.

I really enjoyed Anna’s character. I found her to be charismatic, intuitive, and clever when she knew she needed to make a plan to survive. She was very apt at giving her opinions about what she thought the building of Marbrisa should be, even if it fell onto deaf ears of her husband. She was also very loyal to her husband and their marriage but wasn’t afraid to do what she needed too when things take a turn. I found the telling of the story and the plot well laid out with the alternating chapters. It let’s us look at the past and understand how attached Robert was to Marbrisa. How he considered it to reflect his worth and stature in the community and how Anna felt about this and the tragedies that came about. Some might feel that Marbrisa maybe responsible for things that happened, as Asher has the same pull to purchase the property and spend his fortune trying to bring it back to life. This book covers grief, loss, mystery, betrayal, and a sense of finding out what really is important to a person.