Shelter Bay is a lot like Virgin River. A small town where everyone knows everyone else's business and a lot of love is going around. Glass blower Claire Templeton moves her high school sophomore son from the stars of Hollywood to the backwaters of Oregon after her mother dies and Matt starts to get involved in the wrong crowd. He's a basketball phenom but that won't matter if he's busted for pot possession. Meanwhile Dillon Slater is part of the Vets for Teaching program. He was in Afghanistan diffusing IEDs. Now he teaches physics and coaches basketball. He's good for the team, good for Matt and frankly, good for Claire. She doesn't have any track record with men, but Dillon is so solid it makes her want more. It's a sweet and deeply loving story that will have me looking both forward to the next books and backwards for the backlist. These are the kind of books that cheer you up on a bad day and make you believe that forever love is possible. Sea Glass Winter, Shelter Bay #4, by JoAnn RossGrade: C“Not only does she play with fire and danger; the lady knows her chemistry. I don’t suppose you’d agree to marrying me and having my children?”When Claire Templeton found out she was pregnant by a married man at eighteen her mother was there for her and helped raise her son Max. With her mother passing away and Max getting into trouble at school Claire decides to move from the craziness of Beverly Hills to a quiet life in Shelter Bay, Oregon. Max is anything but happy about the move or the fact that the Shelter Bay Dolphins basketball team hasn’t had a winning record in twelve years. Being the basketball phenomenon that he is, Max is recruited by Coach and physics teacher Dillon Slater and after meeting Claire Dillon has more things on his mind than basketball.Dillon Slater spent the last years in war zones all over the world dismantling bombs and other explosive devices before coming to Shelter Bay through the Troops to Teachers program. Dillon has a ton of pressure on him to turn around the Dolphins basketball team and everyone in town thinks Max Templeton is the answer to their prayers. Dillon knows Max is a great player but he has a bad attitude and the closer he works with Max the more he sees his mother Claire. Claire sparks something in Dillon no other woman has and even though she thinks it’s a bad idea to date due to Dillon being her son’s coach Dillon refuses to let her go without a fight.This is a very cute book and the first that I have read in the series. Parts of it can be read as a stand alone but I highly recommend reading the series in order to know who everyone is and what’s going on. I liked the relationship between Claire and Dillon and I really liked the relationship between Dillon and Max. I think Max was really suffering from losing his grandmother and from never have a father figure in his life. I think that Dillon filled those voids and helped Max out of his funk.I do wish that more time was spent with Dillon and Claire building their relationship and showing how they fell in love. I felt that a lot of the book focused on couples from previous books or on Max and Amiee a girl from school. Half of this book felt like a grown up adult romance and a second part felt like a high school YA book which I disliked a lot. I also disliked that we spent a lot of time with Max and Aimee and we never get to see what happens between them. I really hope this is dealt with in future books.My biggest problem with the book as a whole is that every single person gets a point of view. All the characters from previous books got pages and pages of POV and I think that Claire and Dillon suffered from this. I understand that readers want to know what happens to characters but this was too much for me and took time away from getting to know, like and care about Claire and Dillon.All in all this is a cute book but as I’ve mentioned it does have some flaws. I do want to continue on with the series and I’m hoping that in Castaway Cove we get to spend more time with the hero and heroine then we did in Sea Glass Winter. I’m also hoping for less POVs from everyone in Shelter Bay but I may just have to deal with that.
What do You think about Sea Glass Winter (2012)?
I love JoAnn Ross' books! Was happy to read the latest in the Shelter Bay series.
—joang
Reading this now. My favorite so far of the Shelter Bay books!!
—rickcosby
Loved it. Now I have to read the rest of the series.
—softball1
