The beach house is a peaceful haven, a place to escape everyday problems. Here, three families find their feelings intensified and their lives transformed each summer.When thirty-year-old Julia, mourning the death of her husband, decides to sell the Santa Cruz beach house they owned together, she sets in motion a final summer that will change the lives of all the families who rent it year after year. Teenaged Chris discovers the bittersweet joy of first love. Maggie and Joe, married sixty-five years, courageously face a separation that even their devotion cannot prevent. The married woman Peter yearns for suddenly comes within his reach. And Julia ultimately finds the strength to rebuild her life—something she once thought impossible.With equal measures of heartbreak and happiness, bestselling author Georgia Bockoven's unforgettable novel tells of the beauty of life and the power of love, and speaks to every woman who has ever clung to a child or loved a man.

Amazon.com Review

Julia Huntington is still reeling from her husband Ken's death when she makes the decision that she will sell their summer house on the beach in Santa Cruz after one last season. Three different families have rented the house each summer. Their stories--and Julia's--are the tales that author Georgia Bockoven so beautifully relates in The Beach House. In an original concept, the book is separated into sections delineating the summer months, prefaced and followed by Julia's own story. Readers will be thoroughly enchanted by these love stories--from teenager Chris to Maggie and Joe, married 65 years and coping with Maggie's terminal illness. In the tradition of such great storytellers as Barbara Delinsky, Iris Rainer Dart, and Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Bockoven has penned a novel of such power that readers will be moved to tears. Georgia Bockoven is an author definitely on the brink of superstardom and The Beach House showcases her talents superbly. --Maudeen Wachsmith

Review

"Georgia Bockoven knows the secret to stirring readers' feelings." -- -- The Sacramento Bee
"Georgia Bockoven knows the secret to stirring readers' feelings." -- The Sacramento Bee

In her delightful new novella, Georgia Bockoven brings readers back to the beloved beach house and the charming cottage next door... What should have been the best day in Diana Wagnor's twenty-nine years easily turns into the worst when her job is downsized, she discovers her fiancé in bed with her best friend, and she watches her cherished grandmother's house burn to the ground. Clearly it's time to start over and get out of Topeka, Kansas, where she's spent her whole life. But what should she do? And how does she ever trust herself in another relationship when her one indisputable skill seems to be picking the wrong man? Diana finds her answers at the cottage next door to the beach house with the help of a tall, sculptured, soft-spoken Californian, and a heart-shaped piece of sea glass.  

To face the future,
Returning to her childhood home in the golden hills of Northern California means regret and pain for Karla Esterbrook. Yet she can't refuse when her ailing grandmother, Anna, asks her to help settle her affairs. After all, Anna raised Karla and her younger sisters after their parents' death twenty years before. But from the beginning a powerful clash of wills separated Karla and her grandmother, leaving them both bitter and angry.
A woman must let go of the past
Little does Karla know that a very determined Anna will do everything in her power to bridge the chasm between themincluding helping a charismatic veterinarian out to win her granddaughter for himself. But can the past he healed? For Karla, opening her heart could lead to more hurt...or to love and reconciliationand a passion of which she'd only dreamed.
In the tradition of Barbara Delinksy comes this poignant, moving story of the bonds of family, the strength pf love, and the power of forgiveness.