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Angela Cabot moves to the beach to get over her divorce from a man who spent his life at work. He basically neglected her and, in the end, he cheated on her. She always loved the beach, but her husband, Stephen, never did, so she thought it would be the perfect place to start over. While she’s cleaning the kitchen, the scent of cherry lingers in the air. She didn’t bring it in with her, so what could it be?
Marc Braley goes to visit his grandfather’s old house one more time before heading back to Seattle and his job as an architect. The house holds bad memories for him. On a night three years ago, he’d had an argument with his fiancé. She left upset and was killed in a car accident. Of course, Marc blames himself.
Another woman has moved into his old house, and he can’t seem to forget her. When the scent of cherry follows him home, Marc becomes convinced that his grandfather’s ghost is trying to tell him something.
Because of the pain induced by previous relationships, neither is looking for another relationship, but a ghost has other plans for both of them.
Scent of Cherry is a sweet, romantic, short read, but it’s not very original. A woman seeks a new beginning after a divorce (or some other life crisis). A man blames himself for the death of the woman he loves because of an argument that lead to her death in an accident of some sort. And, of course, the divorced woman and accident-blaming male coincidentally meet. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this
plotline, but the author failed to make it stand out from all the other storylines like it. In addition, the ghost of Marc’s grandfather felt as if it was just thrown in to liven up the story, but it didn’t really help that much.
The writing is strong, and the story flows well, but it seemed as if Ms. Hardin were trying to stuff a 300-page novel into fifteen pages. The story isn’t developed enough to make readers care about what happens to the characters, and the plot is too bland to be unforgettable.
In short, Scent of Cherry is neither good nor bad—it just failed to capture my attention and linger in my memory.
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