Jenny Sullivan is at the tail end of her successful career, but still the news that she will soon be made redundant leaves her shaken and a bit lost. While her children see it as an opportunity for her to become a live in babysitter for them she knows that she wants her retirement to be more about her. Randomly coming across a sand dollar in her home, it immediately brings back memories of her godmother Maddy in Oregon. On a whim Jenny decides she will visit Maddy and forget about her other life stresses for a while. Upon her arrival in the US, Jenny knows she has come to the right place. Despite her advanced age Maddy is very much as she remembered her and the scenery is beautiful. Jenny immediately slips into a happy and relaxing routine, relishing the time she is spending with her godmother. But then a chance discovery of an old letter while helping Maddy de-clutter presents Jenny with another body blow when she discovers a secret about her past.
Mike Halliday is Maddy's neighbour. Happy to leave his old academic life in San Fransisco behind, he loves the peace and quiet of the Oregon coast and while he misses his late wife, he has no plans to fall in love again. Upon hearing that Maddy's goddaughter is arriving and suspecting that she may try to matchmake, he decides he will do his best to avoid Jenny as much as possible. Despite this their paths do cross and both realise that sometimes love will find you even when you're doing your best to retreat from it.
I really enjoyed the way the Sand Dollar celebrated mature women, illustrating that they still continue to live fulfilling lives and are just as affected by the angst of new love or the devastation of learning a life changing fact. Jenny is a well developed three dimensional character and I fully empathised with her as she navigated her way through re-discovering who she really was. I admired the way she strove to remain true to what she wanted in life rather than giving in to what her children expected of her.
The Sand Dollar is a lovely book, with the backdrop of the Oregon Coast an added texture to this multi-layered story. It has an easy to read style that flowed nicely without lagging and explored many themes, chief of these that knowing who you are and where you come from is an intrinsic human need no matter what age you are. I applaud Maggid Christensen for choosing to write about an often neglected age group and showing that their stories are just as interesting and engaging as the twenty somethings.
I really enjoyed the way the Sand Dollar celebrated mature women, illustrating that they still continue to live fulfilling lives and are just as affected by the angst of new love or the devastation of learning a life changing fact. Jenny is a well developed three dimensional character and I fully empathised with her as she navigated her way through re-discovering who she really was. I admired the way she strove to remain true to what she wanted in life rather than giving in to what her children expected of her.
The Sand Dollar is a lovely book, with the backdrop of the Oregon Coast an added texture to this multi-layered story. It has an easy to read style that flowed nicely without lagging and explored many themes, chief of these that knowing who you are and where you come from is an intrinsic human need no matter what age you are. I applaud Maggid Christensen for choosing to write about an often neglected age group and showing that their stories are just as interesting and engaging as the twenty somethings.
