By Phillipa Ashley.
Another fantastic novel from Phillipa Ashley. I have already reviewed the previous novel to this one, A Perfect Cornish Christmas. Although this novel is set in the same town of Porthmellow, you do not need to read them in order to understand the story. The main characters from the first novel only become very minor characters in this one.
So where do I begin? A beautifully set romance novel. Ashley does not just give us one romance story. Oh no. That would be too easy. Instead we are given two romances stories perfectly intertwined with one another to really give us the feels. The stories couldn’t be further apart from each other yet Ashley effortlessly spins her tale without confusion.
We begin with a snippet of the past. Marina Hudson, one of our protagonists, lost her husband to the sea seven years ago. The pain and the hurt that this must have caused is described incredibly clearly and Marina has been on a rollercoaster of emotions. Her late husband Nate isn’t the perfect man, by no means and it seems to be a very unusual and mismatched marriage, if a very happy one at all. It’s heart wrenching to see how distraught Marina is, even though Nate didn’t treat her very well at all. I was desperate for her to want to move on. Enter Lachlan. A stranger to Porthmellow, the Scottish Lachlan moves into a cottage a stones throw from Marina and she is seemingly hooked from the get go. Although she battles with her emotions regarding Nate. Both have a hard history to live with and end up using the support of one another to fight those battles. It’s a lingering romance which takes a while for both of them to jump into. A one point I wanted to yell at Marina and just say ‘Go for it woman’. After all the pain she had been through and now seven years down the line she was allowed to declare Nate legally dead, she had her freedom and I think any reader would be routing for her to follow her heart and not to feel guilty.
Our other protagonist is Tiff Trescott, Marina’s cousin, come from London to escape a life that has let her down. Feeling very vulnerable after being used by her ex-boyfriend Warner, our journalist, Tiff escapes to Marina’s cottage to forgot love and try and rebuild her life. However, on her very first day in the harbour Tiff bumps into Dirk, or as the locals call him, Dirk and Stormy. A sexy, mountain of a man he gets Tiff’s blood boiling straight away. It’s an instant attraction for both of them but funnily they are both so stubborn that it takes them a while to admit to their raw, sexual feelings and jump each other. When it finally happened I was sighing with relief! A completely different relationship to Marina and Lachlan, Ashley manages to juxtapose them well throughout and show that different people are suited to different types of love. Tiff and Dirk have this raw animal magnetism about them, whereas Marina and Lachlan have a maturer, gentler kind of love.
I love the way that Tiff is thrown headfirst into Cornish life. She starts hating the place, just longing for an escape but ends up loving everyone, finding friends everywhere she goes. A lot of the novel focuses around the RNLI which is brilliant as its a fantastic cause to be highlighted that is really important in every day Cornish life.
Every time I read about Porthmellow I want to go there and I am looking forward to more stories based in this brilliantly colourful harbour town.
A must read book-lovers.
Thank you to Avon books via Netgalley for allowing me to read this novel before the publication date of the 11th June 2020. I implore you all to buy yourselves a copy.
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