Review: Drawing Home by Jamie Brenner

Drawing Home by Jamie Brenner

Expected Publication: May 7, 2019

Publisher: Little Brown and Co.

Format: via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Summer has started in idyllic Sag Harbor, and for Emma Mapson that means greeting guests at the front desk of The American Hotel. But when one of the town's most famous residents, artist Henry Wyatt, dies suddenly, Emma learns he has mysteriously left his waterfront home - a self-designed masterpiece filled with his work - to her teenage daughter, Penny.

Back in Manhattan, legendary art patron, Bea Winstead's grief at her lifelong friend and former business partner Henry's passing turns to outrage at the news of his shocking bequest. How did these unknown locals get their hands on the estate? Bea, with her devoted assistant Kyle in tow, descends on Sag Harbor determined to reclaim the house and preserve Henry's legacy.

While Emma fights to defend her daughter's inheritance, Bea discovers that Henry left a treasure trove of sketches scattered around town. With Penny's reluctant help, Bea pieces them together to find a story hidden in plain sight: an illustration of their shared history with an unexpected twist that will change all of their lives.

Drawn together in their battle for the house, Emma and Bea are forced to confront the past while facing a future that challenges everything they believe about love, fate, and family.

My Thoughts

In Drawing Home we met Emma and her daughter Penny who live in Sag Harbor and have formed a life there. Emma is a single mom and Penny her daughter, who suffers from OCD are just living their lives until one day when a dear friend dies and it changes their lives forever.

Penny befriends Henry who is an artist and over time they form a friendship and Henry helps out Penny with her art. So when Henry unexpectedly dies Penny is hurt to her core but is speechless when it's revealed that he left everything to her in his will. No one is more surprised than Henry’s old friend Bea who when she finds out goes to Sag Harbor thinking she is the heir to his will. Bea is determined to get what she thinks is hers but over time she soon realizes that Henry brought her there for other reasons.

Emma is just trying to be the best mother she can be, she has been a single mom since Penny was little but suddenly Penny’s dad has come back into the picture call it a coincidence or not but since Penny got this big inheritance he suddenly wants sole custody. Her life is turned upside down trying to fend off her ex and now Bea who wants to take her down and a daughter who she can't see eye to eye with, what is Emma to do?

In time Penny and Bea begin to spend time together mainly because Bea wants to see why Henry would leave all his belongs to Penny but as she begins to truly see Penny she soon realizes what a talented kid she is and why Henry felt the way he did about her. She begins to feel bad about the way she has treated her and about all she has done to her and her mom.

I really enjoyed this novel about family and how you can find it in the least expected places. The way Jamie Brenner gives us characters that you never thought could come together but in the end, they do. I loved how through all the bitterness and arguments forgiveness still shined through. What started out as strangers and rivals, in the end, gave us family and showed us its never too late to see the good in one another.