I liked the overall premise of this book, so I’ll give it a solid 3 stars for effort… but honestly, I felt like the story just ran out of steam. Literally and figuratively.

The Pros & Cons

It’s a women’s fiction, so I took that in stride and set my expectations accordingly in terms of how much “relationship” to expect. In this case, not much. I’ve read various levels of “relationship” and “sex” in this genre (and I write both into my own “women’s fiction/romance” series), but the point of the genre is the development of women, so I’ll be fair in judging on that basis.

Here’s what I DID like: I loved the characters of the village — they each seemed to have their own story from the glimpses we see through Ava’s story. I liked how Ava evolved from the beginning of the story as a self-centred trophy widow to a caring, nurturing person that even went the extra mile to help someone she barely knew who reminded her of herself, and then to make an effort to smooth things over with her late husband’s daughter.

The female relationships are strong, sweet, and caring — from the elderly Lady Stokeley in her 80s to the young Alice in her early 20s. All of this was beautifully done, and I could just imagine the maternity-clothes parade, the giggling ladies, the tea party; all of these — truly lovely. This was all nicely done and brought a lot of colour and life to the reader’s imagination.

My problem was the love interest, Jace. I liked that he had a dark past, and that he was not the typical “hero” — this was AWESOME. More books need to have characters like this that aren’t perfect. I was happy with him as a character, mind you. My issue was the relationship between him and Ava. Relationships need not be the focus in a women’s fiction, sure. But the problem with this one was that it seemed like it would be… but then this didn’t pay off.

If there was no guy at all, I’d have been okay with that. But having him there seemed like he was tossed in last-minute, at times, to fill some “there must be a man” quota. I’ve complained about books with way too much sex (to the level of gratuitous!) but I really wish this one had a *bit* more steam. Not sex, necessarily. Just steam. Something. Anything beyond friendship that blooms into a sudden love declaration from seemingly nowhere!

Conclusion

Sigh. There was potential for this book to do more for me, but I did enjoy it for the most part. I would perhaps read on to learn more about the other women of Willoughby — I just prefer if the men were kept out of it entirely so the focus wouldn’t stray from the beauty of the female relationships.

Purchase your copy