What is your guilty pleasure? What do you head for when you’ve had a bad day? A bowl of ice cream, a glass of wine, a bacon sandwich? Well, you can save those calories, just get a hold of Kristy Woodson Harvey’s newest of twelve novels, Beach House Rules (Gallery Books 2025), set it aside and the next time you have a bad day simply pick up the book and prepare to have your mood changed within minutes to be smiling and laughing and feeling like you live at the beach.
The prologue sets us firmly on Juniper Shores’ shifting sands in North Carolina. Charlotte, Bill, and their daughter Iris are the live-happily-ever after kind of family, until in the very first chapter, they aren’t. Bill is in prison, and the house, the cars, and the assets are all locked up tight. What are Charlotte and Iris to do? In walks Alice, quite literally, and scoops up Charlotte, takes her home and invites her to live at the mommune. The mommune consists of four women and six children, five of whom are girls and one dear sweet boy, the leader of the pack, Merit.
If you’ve never heard of a mommune, you aren’t alone. I certainly hadn’t. It sort of reminded me of Kate and Allie, for those of us of a certain age, or Frankie and Grace—if only their children lived at home with them. It seems to me to be a brilliant idea.
It’s an idyllic situation where everybody gets along—all the grown women and all the children get along swimmingly in this beautiful house on the beach. There are rules, of course, to living there, hence the name of the book.
Told by the three voices of Charlotte, Alice, and Iris, the point of view switches from child to adult in a way that captures the essence of being a teenager who sees the world so differently from the mother figures of these fractured families.
Age 11, Iris already has a charming sense of humor and candor. The minute Charlotte informs Iris they will be living at the mommune, Iris tells her mother, “Alice murdered three of her husbands, Mom. Not one, not two, three.”
Shortly thereafter Iris offers to help Alice with the laundry because she says she likes the way it smells clean and fresh. Alice tells her that they use natural fragrance-free detergent so there’s no smell. Iris says, “You’re killing me, Alice, killing me.” We have to wonder if there is a bit of foreshadowing going on: is Iris uncannily perceptive? For sure, she is savvy:
“But that’s the thing about being a teenager. Sometimes you have to tell your parents what they want to hear. Even if you don’t mean it one little bit.”
A big question is, who is Alice, really? She’s the gatherer of all these women and children into her home, but is she really a black widow? Did she kill three husbands—is there a sinister side to Alice? Should everyone sleep with their doors locked?
And why isn’t Bill, supposedly an esteemed member of the community, released on his own recognizance? Is there more to his story than meets the eye?
Sandwiched between several of the chapters is a gossipy Instagram account written by Junior Shores Socialite that serves to fill in some background, and lead you on. And of course, that is the little snake in the grass somewhere in the community; who is the Junior Shores Socialite, and who is feeding inside info to her?
Five things contribute to making this book such a vacation in your head and so enjoyable to read:
- Common sense and good old-fashioned values: “Just because something is broken, Alice, that doesn’t mean you throw it away. It means that, if you love it enough, if you care for it exactly right, you can make it whole again.”
- Intrigue
- Romance: “I felt like my heart was fully open, like something in the center of me was blooming and wide.”
- Mystery
- Humor: “ ‘Elliott I am going to kill you”… The face that he made was comically horrified. “‘Never what one wants to hear coming out of the mouth of a Black Widow.’”
There are some delightful and delectable twists and turns at the end that have you alternating between geez, I sure didn’t see that coming; and, well, of course!
Kristy Woodson Harvey
Once again, Kristy Woodson Harvey has told a tale that captures our imaginations in her unique way, and leaves you wondering if you want to pass the book on to your best friend, or just hold onto it and reread it yourself.
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