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The Treading Water series is a series of novels by Marie Force a popular contemporary romance author from the United States. These novels are what made the name of the Force in the literary world being her debut series. The first novel in the series was the 2011 published Treading Water, from which the series takes its name.
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Order of Treading Water Series
| # | Read | Title | Published | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Treading Water | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
| 2 | Marking Time | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
| 3 | Starting Over | 2011 | Description / Buy | |
| 4 | Coming Home | 2012 | Description / Buy | |
| 5 | Finding Forever | 2020 | Description / Buy |
The first book in Marie Force’s Treading Water series is the book Treading Water. It is an emotional rollercoaster of a story, which focuses on Jack Harrington and Andrea Walsh. Jack’s life has been put on hold as he had taken a sabbatical to care for his wife, Clare, who is in a coma after an accident. He is adamant that he will never abandon his wife and soldiers on. But things change when he meets the gorgeous interior designer, Andrea Walsh a contractor he had hired to come redesign his hotel in Newport, Rhode Island.
When he starts back at work, developing a hotel, he meets Andrea, who has been sent to do the interior design for the project. Of course, Andrea’s story is not simple either. She is a single mother to a son with hearing difficulties, and she is not looking for love. However, while working together, Jack and Andrea become close and although distance keeps them apart, they attempt to juggle this, as well as their complicated personal lives and by the end of the book, they are faced with several unbelievably difficult decisions to make. What follows is a nail-biting tale of suspense and intrigue that shows why Marie Force has sold more than 3 million copies of her works worldwide.
The second book in the Treading Water series, Marking Time, is a continuation of the story introduced in Treading Water. Without giving too much away from the first book in the series, we meet the characters introduced in Treading Water, and as well as following them, we also meet Kate Harrington, Jack and Clare’s daughter, who is a talented country singer and dreams to make it big in Nashville. So while we continue the story from Treading Water, we also take in Kate’s adventure to Nashville, where she falls in love with an older man that fails to get the approval of those who Kate cares about the most.
The third book in the Treading Water series, Starting Over, does not continue the stories from Treading Water and Marking Time, instead taking in a new romantic story. However, the fourth and final book in the series, Coming Home, resolves the outstanding storylines from Marking Time, and hopefully puts a fitting end in place to the Treading Water series, with the resolution of Kate Harrington’s story ten years after the end of Marking Time.
The Treading Water series is set in Newport, Rhode Island even as some parts of the plot take place in Stowe, Vermont, and Nashville, Tennessee. Marie Force originally intended to make the novels a trilogy, but wrote a fourth novel after the first three novels became very popular. The first two novels are about the Harrington family; Jack and Clare Harrington and their love lives. The third novel is about the life of Brandon O’Malley, a man who lives a life full of resentment and secrets. The last novel in the series sees the Harringtons return with Kate Harrington the daughter of the Harringtons as the lead.
BEST TREADING WATER BOOKS
Starting Over: The third novel of the Treading Water series is a sizzling romance with an adrenaline-charged and entertaining story line that introduces intriguing characters that will leave you in tears as you love, laugh, and cry right along with them. Brandon O’Malley the lead character has refused to acknowledge that he has a drinking problem. He is soon forced to admit he needs help when he viciously attacks his brother’s girlfriend. Now in rehab, he finds that getting his life back together is not going to be as easy as he thought it would. But the plot gets more compelling when the secretive Daphne and her daughter Mike come into his life, giving it new meaning.
Coming Home: The third novel in the series is one of those novels that was written due to public demand. Most fans of the Treading Water series believed the story in “Marking Time” was unfinished, hence the clamor for Kate Harrington’s story. This novel starts out ten years after book two, and introduces a Kate that has achieved everything she set out to achieve in life except for one thing – Reid the man she left behind to go pursue her music career. She is not sure what reception she can expect from Reid when she turns up unannounced and tells him that she wants him back. She is also not sure how her father Jack and sister Jill will react given that the Harringtons have been at loggerheads with the O’Malley family for years.
Marking Time: The second novel in the series is a sequel to the first novel in the Treading Water series. Clare Harrington is beginning a new life after being in a coma for three years. Even as she had made the selfless decision to let her husband marry Andi, she still does not know what to do with her life now that she is back home. Meanwhile, her eighteen-year-old daughter, who is a talented songwriter and singer, leaves to go to Nashville to pursue her dreams. The only complication is that she has fallen for a man twice her age, which forces her divorced parents back together to try to talk their daughter out of a bad relationship.
OTHER BOOK SERIES YOU MAY LIKE
If you loved the Treading Water series, you will love the “Blackthorn Trilogy” by Sophia Johnson. These novels are historical romances that follow the lives of the disparate families of Blackthorn castle. Fans of the Treading Water series also recommend the “Wicked in Wellington” series of novels by Kris Pearson. These novels are about women meet the most handsome of alpha males that their minds say they should not date, but they just cannot help falling for them.
Treading Water FAQs
Q: Who writes the Treading Water series?
A: The romantic fiction author Marie Force writes the Treading Water series of novels.
Q: What is the first book in the Treading Water series?
A: The first book in Marie Force’s Treading Water series is the appropriately named Treading Water. That is followed by Marking Time, Starting Over and finally Coming Home.
What Is The Next Book in The Treading Water Series?
There doesn't seem to be an upcoming book in The Treading Water Series. The newest book is Finding Forever and was released on April, 14th 2020.
On the surface, the Treading Water books are romance novels, but they are really so much more than that. They are a story of a family, the O’Malleys, and all they go through in their quests for love. My favorite book has to be Starting Over that follows Brandon in his quest to stay sober, on the road to recovery and looking for that special someone. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is so very worth it when he finds her. Tears were shed.