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We have another Advanced Review Copy for you this week!  If you like the way The House on Biscayne Bay sounds, pre-order it so it arrives on April 2, 2024 for your reading consumption.  Special thanks to Berkley Publishing Group, NetGalley, and the amazing publicist who included us on the Blog Blitz Alert!  

Let me start with my confessions 

• I knew nothing about this book before I read it, other than the title, author, and cover image, and IT WAS GLORIOUS.  Darling readers, sometimes you just need to place yourself in the hands of an author and enjoy the ride, and when it’s a season pass author, it’s always when you need to do that.  Last summer when we reviewed The Cuban Heiress, I went on record awarding Chanel Cleeton a season pass, and she doubled down with The House on Biscayne Bay and hit a home run!  

• It did take me a bit longer to read The House on Biscayne Bay than my last Cleeton novel, meaning two days instead of 25 hours (and two days is still well above my average reading speed).  While it was spring break when I read it, I was still working, cat herding children, and making aforementioned children “help” clean out their closets and drawers, so had it been a weekend, it would probably have been faster.

If you enjoy historical fiction, a bit of a mystery, and a dual timeline, The House on Biscayne Bay might just be for you as it contains every bit of that, with a substantial bow at the end.  Anna and Carmen both find themselves living at Marbrisa (the titular house) not of their own choosing, Anna with her husband at the end of the Great War, as he gifted it to her, after building the grand house he wanted (eyeroll), and Carmen with her sister and brother-in-law after her parents died in a boating accident.  Drama ensues for them both, and they each have a mystery to solve as we go back and forth between them and in time, trying to piece together the stories into one.  I want to say more (and the marketing copy does), but I’m going to leave the plot as is.  

My favorite aspect of The House on Biscayne Bay is the sense of place, supported by the lush descriptions of the grounds and house.  The irony is not lost on me that my rising fourth grader picked Biscayne National Park as one of his top ten national parks he’d like to visit, and Cleeton’s descriptions definitely hold with everything he’s shared with me (except the manatees, but I digress).  While Marbrisa is a fictional house, it is also the main character in the book.  Both Anna and Carmen, among others, talk about the house as almost a sentient being.  It’s not that the house takes action, but it almost has moods, and most definitely gives off vibes (as any house does, if we take the time to listen) and not necessarily by the design of the architect (who you meet early on in the book).  

Overall, The House on Biscayne Bay is getting 4.5 stars from me, and rounding up to 5.  It was engaging and exciting, well-written across time periods where there was a lot of change in the world, and included a fun mystery for the reader to try to solve alongside Anna and Carmen.  I’m delighted to say Cleeton has maintained her season pass status, and I’m even more looking forward to reading more of her backlist.  

Who’s a season pass author for you?

~Nikki 

The House on Biscayne Bay is the FOURTH title from prolific and multiple times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton we’re reviewing here at Heart.Wants.Books. However, it’s the first advanced review copy that we have received on behalf of Cleeton and we could not be more grateful for the honor bestowed upon us by the publishing gods. Cleeton is her own brand of magic. Not only does she have eight titles (seven novels and one short story) focused on historic Cuban/American women, but she has also published ten other novels in the contemporary romance and thriller genres. In addition to these literary accolades, Cleeton received her bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London, her master’s in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and her Juris Doctor (that’s her law degree) from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She grew up in Florida and from what little information there is about her current life on the internet, I can only surmise that she still lives there. (Here’s a link to an event on April 9th in Coral Gables, Florida, to celebrate the release happening on April 2nd!)

It should come as no surprise to any of you that I love homes. I love places, I love buildings, the older the better, because they speak to us of the lives that came before us. I also love new builds because they also tell a story but that’s not the story we’re focusing on at this moment. We’re obsessed with The House on Biscayne Bay, Marbrisa, a fictional home designed by fictional architect Michael Harrison and Marbrisa’s owners Robert and Anna Barnes from New York. Even during the home’s construction, the characters talk about how a home, especially a grand home such as Marbrisa, “is a living, breathing organism rather than an expensive heap of stone.” Harrison says to Anna at one point,

“I like to think of the houses I build as having their own personalities. Oh, there’s the people who are their custodians to consider, of course, a symbiosis in the relationship between the house and its owner, but sometimes these grand estates have a way of forcing their residents to their will, of bending and shaping the trajectory of their lives. After all, when our bones turn to dust, these walls will still stand.”

And then there’s Carmen’s point of view, two decades after the Barneses built Marbrisa and how the house was lovingly and expensively restored by her brother in law, Asher, after years of vacancy, neglect, and downright destruction. The house in the daylight is a thing of dreams, but at night a place of nightmares. 

I love gothic novels where the house is the location and a character and the impetus of the plot. (I’m a real estate agent with a deep appreciation for historic preservation, so this should not come as a surprise.) Without Marbrisa, without the house on the bay, Cleeton wouldn’t have had a story to tell us. None of the characters would have come together, in either timeline, and the mystery and thrills would not have occurred or had such a grand effect on the reader. The House on Biscayne Bay is a five star read for me from Chanel Cleeton, a season pass author in my life if ever there was one. If you love a grand house that’s built for your dreams but also food for your nightmares, with screaming peacocks, random alligators, dangerous sea cliffs, and weather that can turn from beautiful one minute to harrowing the next, then pick up this title from Chanel Cleeton. You might be asking yourself the same question that’s also the first line of the book: “I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to live in Florida.”

~Ashley

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