Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Guest Book: A Novel
    The Guest Book: A Novel
    The Guest Book: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Guest Book: A Novel

    Written by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

    Narrated by Renee Raudman

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Twenty-five years after she began exchanging drawings with a mysterious boy in the guest book of a Carolina beach house, Macy Dillon is back at Sunset Beach—this time toting a hurting heart and a broken family. Questions of childhood, loss, and longing for love are explored in The Guest Book. 

    When Macy Dillon was five years old her father encouraged her to draw a picture in the guestbook of a Carolina beach house. The next year, Macy returned to discover a drawing by an unidentified little boy on the facing page. Over the next eleven years the children continue to exchange drawings … until tragedy ends visits to the beach house altogether. During her final trip to Sunset, Macy asks her anonymous friend to draw her one last picture and tells him where to hide the guest book in hopes that one day she will return to find it—and him.

    Twenty-five years after that first picture, Macy is back at Sunset Beach—this time toting a broken family and a hurting heart. One night, alone by the ocean, Macy asks God to help her find the boy she never forgot, the one whose beautiful pictures touched something deep inside of her. Will she ever find him? And if she does, will the guestbook unite them or merely be the relic of a lost childhood?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherZondervan
    Release dateJul 3, 2012
    ISBN9780310334767
    The Guest Book: A Novel
    Author

    Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

    Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of the forthcoming novel Every Moment Since (out fall of 2024) and nine previous novels. Marybeth received a BA degree in English with a concentration in Writing and Editing from NC State University a long time ago and has been writing ever since. She is the co-founder of The Book Tide, an online community of readers where "a rising tide raises all books." Marybeth and her husband Curt are the parents of six children, with only one left at home. A native of Charlotte, NC, Marybeth now calls Sunset Beach, NC home. Visit her online at: https://linktr.ee/Marybethwhalen  

    More audiobooks from Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

    Related to The Guest Book

    Related audiobooks

    Christian Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Millions Top Ten: September 2017

      Oct 16, 2017

      This month marks the entrée of two newcomers. The post The Millions Top Ten: September 2017 appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Lauren Francis-Sharma

      Dec 16, 2021

      These are stories and essay collections written by and about people who are interested in examining the world. This is what I needed in books this year, so I offer them to you, as a healing balm for all our 2021 wounds. The post A Year in Reading: La

      5 min read

    • Article

      Kathryn Hughes

      Nov 4, 2021

      ‘The Memory Box is my fifth book, which began life with a simple image of an old lady celebrating her 100th birthday in the care home where she lives. However, instead of being surrounded by friends and family, she’s in the company of strangers who h

      1 min read

    • Article

      March Fiction

      Feb 15, 2022

      Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Century, £20) In 2018 the ever-prolific James Patterson got together with Bill Clinton to write the best-selling The President Is Missing: a novel that combined Clinton’s insider knowledge with Patter

      2 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Jun 16, 2023

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      Romantic Entanglements Bring Humor And Heartache To Small Town

      Jun 21, 2021

      Katherine Heiny’s novel transplants readers to Boyne City, Michigan, through the keen eyes of the town’s new schoolteacher.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Under The Whispering Door

      Nov 3, 2021

      ▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 376 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author TJ Klune ▶ Publisher Tor An uneven yet goodhearted hybrid of Dead Like Me and The Good Place, Under The Whispering Door ponders what happens when you don’t start actually living your l

      1 min read

    • Article

      Snow Angel Mittens

      Nov 1, 2021

      THE WINTER OF 1933. Some remember that time as the depths of the Great Depression. But I remember it for something else. Life, as we knew it, had ground to a halt in our small town in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon. When the bank failed,

      7 min read

    • Article

      There’s No Place Like Home

      Dec 10, 2021

      There’s No Place Like Home
      6 min read

    • Article

      Black Water Sister

      Aug 2, 2021

      The drawing must have been bundled up with other, less interesting papers, or Jess wouldn’t have thrown it away. Mom had kept every piece of art Jess had ever made, her childhood scrawls treated with as much reverence as the pieces from her first – a

      5 min read

    • Article

      Hauntings

      Jul 5, 2023

      Hauntings
      11 min read

    • Article

      Merry BIRTHDAY!

      Dec 8, 2021

      Merry BIRTHDAY!
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Christmas Connection

      Nov 25, 2023

      The Christmas Connection
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Animal Whisperer

      Feb 5, 2023

      CALL AMANDA DE WARREN! Visit amandadewarren.com for phone reading information. I’m with my grandads AMANDA SAYS Missy comes through and tells me she has passed. Missy tells me she went downhill quite quickly within a month. She was the queen of the h

      1 min read

    • Article

      Follow Your HEART

      Mar 30, 2022

      Follow Your HEART
      9 min read

    • Article

      Salt On The WIND

      Apr 1, 2020

      Salt On The WIND
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Writing On THE WALL

      Apr 6, 2021

      The Writing On THE WALL
      6 min read

    • Article

      Presumably Pat

      Sep 23, 2023

      Presumably Pat
      4 min read

    • Article

      Becoming Santa Claus

      Nov 20, 2023

      Becoming Santa Claus
      5 min read

    • Article

      The winds OF CHANGE

      Jan 19, 2022

      The winds OF CHANGE
      11 min read

    • Article

      Monsters

      Jan 10, 2021

      The ice cream truck rolled down the street where the Pinketts lived. It passed slowly and kept on going, towards the park that was three blocks away, its siren song got lost in the distance like a popsicle melting in the heat of that summer day. Nanc

      14 min read

    • Article

      Last Christmas

      Oct 6, 2022

      Last Christmas
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Purple Bunny

      Mar 25, 2023

      The Purple Bunny
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      ‘Dry Weet-Bix & Vegemite Were All We Had’

      Jun 6, 2021

      Dressed in her school uniform, the freckle-faced 11-year-old girl with bangs and her hair tied back with a ribbon wears a cheeky smile and looks proud as punch as she poses for a photo. But that infectious smile hid the pain that Wendy Harmer and her

      3 min read

    • Article

      Chrissie Chaos

      Dec 7, 2023

      Why does Santa have the same writing as you?’ Alice asked. Six was such a suspicious age. I’d already had a whole series of similar questions. ‘Is Santa older than the dinosaurs, Mum?’ she’d asked me. ‘Um, they’re roughly the same age,’ I’d replied.

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Move And A Miracle

      Oct 5, 2021

      It was December 1957. We had been in Florida for six months. We had moved from New York state because my father and mother had lost their business. My dad thought that moving to Florida would improve our situation, but it had not. Jobs were scarce, a

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Guest Book

    3.5/5

    37 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The book was a little too religious for my taste but despite that it held my interest and was entertaining.
    • 3/5
      I had read this earlier in the year and because I had so many titles with "guest" in it I thought I had added it to my collection… guess not. So this was a quick read but very different plot and the characters were well developed and nicely done. Set at the beach which is a relaxing read for me! Good job.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy Whalen's books. They are great beach reads, especially if you are like me and can see yourself on Sunset Beach.
    • 5/5
      Budding artist, Macy Dillion drew her first picture in the guesthouse at a vacation beach house when she was five. Over the years, a young boy drew pictures back to her, and they developed a line of communication that followed them through the years. Then Macy’s father died, she got pregnant, and the father of her child left her. Now five years later, her child’s father returns, but her mother plans another vacation to Sunset Beach. Macy is determined to find the artist from the guestbook to see if he still feels the connection from the past.I wasn’t prepared to like this book, since I perceived it to be a basic romance novel, but I did. The story weaves around Macy, her mother, and her brother, who have all reached turning points in their lives. The characters captured me from the beginning and pulled me in as I watched this hurting family turn toward joy. This is a great read to curl up and enjoy.Received Galley from NetGalley.com
    • 4/5
      THE GUEST BOOK by Mary Beth Whalen is a christian fiction set in Sunset Beach,North Carolina. Follow Macy Dillion to Sunset Beach, North Carolina.Go with Macy with her struggles,grief,healing,regrets, a mysterious guest book,love,second chances, a few twists and turns. A great summer read! Of course, being from Eastern North Carolina myself,and knowing the area only made it seem more real. "The Guest Book" is a complex,compelling,story of childhood memories and God's neverending love. Macy gets her answered prayers with a flood of men. Follow Macy on her journey of discovery and find that dreams do come true after all. A very special book that Guest book turns out to be. Anyone who enjoys Christian reading,a great summer read,love,and God's healing powers.Received for an honest review from the publisher. Details can be found at Zondervan,the author's website and My Book Addiction and More.RATING: 4HEAT RATING: SWEETREVIEWED BY: AprilR, My Book Addiction and More
    • 4/5
      An easy summer read that I finished in a couple of days. Single mom Macy, has been raising her daughter ever since Emma’s dad, Chase, left Emma when she was a baby. Macy’s life is finally on the right track when Chase shows up wanting to start over. Macy’s mom and brother don’t trust him, but Emma wants her dad to stay. Macy’s own father died when she was young and his death deeply affected all of them—her mom is stuck in the past, her brother drinks too much, and Macy carries a lot of guilt from the last summer she spent with her father at a beach house in North Carolina. The family had been renting the beach house every summer until her father’s death, but afterwards it was so painful that they stopped going, now out of the blue, her mom decides they should go back. Macy feels a glimmer of hope when she realizes that she may be able to solve a mystery surrounding the guest book inside the rental. Every year she and a mystery person exchanged drawings through the pages of the guest book, but they never met. Now may be the time she’s meets the mysterious artist. I liked the premise of the story, but the writing became a little repetitious when it came to Macy’s memories—as a reader, being told something more than a few times slows the story down. This was an Advanced Reader Copy and hopefully she’ll tighten that up before the release date, still I gave it 4 stars because I liked the characters.