Terri DuLong

I came upon the Cedar Key series by Terri Dulong due to finishing another novel about knitting and this book was suggested to me afterwards.

The main character, Sydney Webster, finds herself starting all over again in her early fifties on Cedar Key, an island off the coast of Florida. Moving in with her college best friend Alison, Sydney starts to work on herself and her relationship with her adult daughter, Monica.

This was a very fast read and I ended up liking Sydney though at times she was very frustrating. There were several times in the novel that I thought she was being very childish.

I did like the descriptions of the island and the other residents like Saren, Miss Dora, and Alison. Everyone in the novel felt like a fully fleshed out character.

There were really just two things that I had a hard time with which is why I lowered my rating by a star and a half.

First, the resolution of Sydney's background was far-fetched. Having the author's characters say over and over again this is like something that would happen in a movie and saying that it was very hard to believe did not make it more palatable to me as a reader.

Second, I really wanted to hear more about Sydney spinning the cat and dog hair into wool to make sweaters/scarves, etc. for the pet owners. The sentences would just read that Sydney spun on her wheel but other than that I didn't get a sense of what she was doing exactly besides spinning. I wanted more details since I was so fascinated by her spinning and her idea for a job sounded really interesting.

I would definitely recommend this novel to others!… (altro)

The second novel in the "Cedar Key" series by Terri Dulong was very much improved in my opinion.

Monica Brooks, the daughter of Sydney Webster from Spinning Forward (Cedar Key) is the main protagonist in this novel that takes place four years later on Cedar Key.

At first in "Spinning Forward" I didn't really care for Monica. I thought she was a spoiled brat but after more interactions with her and her mother in that novel I did come around to her point of view and why she was so frustrated with her mother.

In this novel, Monica is a newlywed and excited about starting her life with her husband Adam. However, Adam's daughter, Clarissa, from his first marriage comes to live with them and Monica finds herself floundering since she doesn't know if she has it in her to be a mother.

I really applaud Ms. Dulong for writing the novel this way. Often times most women around Monica's age don't know if they are cut out to be mothers' or even if they want to be. I liked her struggle with it and her attempts to get close to Clarissa but not knowing if she was doing the right thing. I also liked her very realistically being frustrated with Clarissa at times and just thinking that her husband would make all the decisions (since hey it is his child) and how awkward she felt being a step-mother.

The only reason that I did mark it down one star was that once again though knitting was discussed in this novel, I felt as if there were no details that the author added in order for me to understand the different patterns or the styles of knitting. I would stop focusing on the knitting per se and just make it more of a side note unless she plans on focusing on it more in her subsequent novels of Cedar Key.

Would recommend to fans of Cedar Key series!… (altro)

This is the third novel in Terri Dulong's "Cedar Key" series. All of her novels take place on the island of Cedar Key off the coast of Florida.

I did enjoy the first two novels in Ms. Dulong's series, Spinning Forward (Cedar Key) and Casting About. Though I enjoyed the characters I thought Ms. Dulong needed to include more information on knitting since that was the part of the plot in both stories.

In her latest, this novel focuses on Monica Brooks best friend Grace Stone. From the last novel we know that Grace has a coffee shop that she managed to hold onto when developers did their best to drive her out of business. However, due to a lightning storm she loses her entire store and her apartment. Luckily her Aunt Maude is moving to Cedar Key and Grace moves in with her and begins a new business that will focus on knitting retreats for women. Grace's estranged older sister, Chole, also ends up moving to Cedar Key and the two women start to tentatively form a relationship with one another.

I wish that I could recommend this novel but this is definitely the weakest, in my opinion, of the series.

First, as was the problem with the other two novels though the characters mention knitting, cabling, etc. it is left vague with no details about how one does the knitting and what is the difference in the types of materials. I think that if Ms. Dulong is going to have knitting in this novel then you must describe it to the reader. I have no idea what knit one, pearl one is or about the fibers that the women were using and styles.

Second, Grace was just not a character that I cared for at all in this novel. She is at terms selfish, delusional, and angry. The author goes into Grace's past and you found out more about her previous relationship and why she has a hard time forming relationships. However, readers finding out about her previous relationship made her even less sympathetic to me as a character. Her interactions with her sister also I found sorely lacking.

Third, all of the other secondary characters except for Luc were cardboard cut-outs to me. Previous protagonists Sydney and Monica show up, but say very little. Considering that Monica is Grace's best friend they barely interacted in this novel. Sydney's, Nick never shows up at all in this novel which is very odd since we know from "Spinning Forward" that his mother lives on the island and he has a home there. The same thing happened with Monica's husband Adam, he just became a non-entity in this story.

Fourth, there is a plot development dealing with Monica Brook's yarn store that stretched credibility to me. We know from the last book that money is tight for the family and would be more so now so the resolution with the yarn store made no sense at all.

Fifth, to me the main focus of this novel kept shifting around so much. I started to just start to rush through the novel to just finish it already.

I would only recommend to readers who read the previous two novels who may want a peek (and I mean peek) at former characters.… (altro)