Blog Tour, Review & Giveaway: Up at Butternut Lake by Mary McNear (CLOSED)

Title: Up at Butternut Lake   

Author: Mary McNear     

Series: The Butternut Lake Trilogy, #1

Published: April 2014, William & Morrow Paperbacks  

Format: ARC Paperback, 384 pages   

Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours  

It’s been ten years
since Allie Beckett crossed the threshold of her family cabin at
Butternut Lake, Minnesota. Now, newly widowed after the death of her
husband in Afghanistan, she’s returned with her five-year-old son.

There,
she reconnects with the friends she had in childhood-best girlfriend
Jax, now married with three kids and one on the way, and Caroline, owner
of the local coffee shop. What Allie doesn’t count on is a newcomer to
Butternut Lake, Walker Ford.

Up at Butternut Lake follows these
four unforgettable characters across a single summer as they struggle
with love, loss, and what it means to take risks, confront fears, and
embrace life, in all of its excitement and unpredictability.

Allie
Beckett could never have imagined, when she ran away from her old life,
that she was running into a whole new life, up at the lake….

My thoughts: This is the first book in Mary McNear’s Butternut Lake trilogy and I was immediately drawn in to the book right from the first page. While the story does deal with some heavy topics – grief and loss, it’s also a heartwarming read, filled with second chances and even romance.

I loved the characters that we meet in this introduction to Butternut Lake. I’m not sure if the trilogy will follow the same main characters all the way through or focus on some of the minor characters we met, but there really wasn’t a character that didn’t grab me in this book. While the book mainly focuses on Allie and Walker, Carolyn and Jax, Allie’s friend’s from childhood do play a big part in the book and we get glimpses into their lives.

I loved watching the relationship develop between Allie and Walker. Both had pasts that needed to be dealt with before they could move on but it was quite obvious that an attraction was present. I also loved the interactions between Wyatt, Allie’s five year old son, and Walker – they just made my heart melt!

Allie has not had an easy time and in an effort to move on, has uprooted her and her son to her family’s old cabin. Filled with regrets, she is constantly second-guessing herself. She thought that by heading up to Butternut Lake, she would be able to hide away and continue to grief for as long as she wanted. Life had other plans…as did her friends.

I really enjoyed this introduction to Butternut Lake and cannot wait to revisit it again with the second book, Butternut Summer due out this summer.

Books in this series:

1. Up at Butternut Lake
2. Butternut Summer – due out Aug 2014

About the author: Mary McNear lives in San Francisco with her husband, two teenage
children, and a high-strung, minuscule white dog named Macaroon. She
writes her novels in a local doughnut shop, where she sips Diet Pepsi,
observes the hubbub of neighborhood life, and tries to resist the
constant temptation of freshly made doughnuts. She bases her novels on a
lifetime of summers spent in a small town on a lake in the northern
Midwest.

Authors Link: 

Facebook   
 

To see who else is participating in Mary McNear’s Up at Butternut Lake tour, click here.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS – CLOSED (US/Can only)   

Thanks to Trish at TLC Book Tours I have one copy of Up at Butternut Lake to give away to my readers. 

To enter…

• Leave a comment below & be sure to include your email address.
• Tweet, share on Facebook, or blog for 2 extra entries.
• You MUST include email address or entry will be invalid.
• I will contact winner at the conclusion of the giveaway & they will have 2 days to respond or I will pick a new winner.

This giveaway is open to US/Can residents only and ends May 12th.

Good luck!