Rating: 3 stars
Published: January 18, 2024
Pages: 384
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Romance
I was gifted this book early this year and before then I had never heard of this author. However, as someone who is usually open to discovering new authors, I was pleased to go into reading this book without any expectations.
This story is set in a small Cornish village in England and follows three and a half main characters. Freya, the fiancée of the perfect doctor in town; Ruby, the vicar’s wife; Lottie, Freya’s best friend and rental property manager and Iris, Ruby’s cleaning lady. It all begins on Freya’s wedding which is disrupted when Ruby storms the church to confront her vicar husband after discovering his infidelity. While this goes on, Lottie is surprised to see her teenage love after so many years present at the wedding, and they are both uncertain if they want to revisit the past and renege why they never could quite happen. Freya’s wedding is postponed indefinitely but the aftermath of the events from that day changes the lives of all four women as they try to make sense of their lives and future. The main themes in this story include, betrayal, deceit, second chances, new beginnings and true love.
I really wanted to love this book but while each main character’s story was interesting to read, there seemed to be too much going on in one book. I find that when there are more than two (pairs) main characters, it affects the character development of each character because the additional main characters take up the space for proper character development to take place. I didn’t also find any particular character endearing and I believe this also affected my overall impression of this book. Lottie’s love story was my favorite out of all of them and I would have preferred if she explored their story more. It generally gave a soap opera kind of vibe but in a book and it wasn’t for me. However, I must say that the writing was good, and I would like to explore other books written by this author to see if I may change my mind about her stories.
If you like stories with multiple main characters and loads of drama, I recommend this book. You will love it!
The Author:
Jill Mansell lives with her partner and children in Bristol, and writes full time. Actually that’s not true; she watches TV, eats fruit gums, admires the rugby players training in the sports field behind her house, and spends hours on the internet marvelling at how many other writers have blogs. Only when she’s completely run out of displacement activities does she write.
Jill Mansell’s books have sold over ten million copies and her titles include: Making your Mind up, Fast Friends, Good at Games, Sheer Mischief and Solo, among many others.
Copyright © Biyai Garricks
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Biyai Garricks, rovingbookwormng.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Discover more from Biyai Garricks
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.