2 Star
Best friends May, Lara and Clare are desperate for a holiday. They have been dreaming of a little cottage away from it all, long walks in the country and just a bit of time away from it all. But when they arrive in Ren Dullem, a small Yorkshire seaside town, it seems it is not the place they thought it was...
May has never quite found her niche in life, or her Mr Right. Then in Dullem she falls hook line and sinker at first glance for one of the inhabitants - but he's already taken.
Lara is living with James and his awful step-children who taunt her with tales of his younger, prettier ex whom they adored. The woman who Lara walks in to find James in bed with despite all his protestations that he wouldn't touch her again with a barge pole. Reeling from the hurt, she needs the sea air of Dullem to heal her. What she doesn't need is to be constantly in battle with the owner of the holiday cottage - a man who is every bit as bitter and resentful and untrusting of the other sex as she is.
Clare's fiance Hugh wants her to go and live abroad with him for two years, but she's just been offered the promotion of a life-time. She needs some headspace to think about what she needs to do, but then she meets a very bad boy who is everything Hugh isn't - impulsive, wild and dangerous. Will this holiday be the break they all need?
Or will it bring them all to breaking point...?
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Rebecca - 2 Star
I need to be honest and say that I struggled to make it through this book, and got side tracked by other reads along the way. It started off well; the three friends are likable and credible. Johnson is recognisably a pro who's done this (many times) before and she sets up their back stories well enough so that by the time they set off on their holiday, I was keen to know what was in store for them.
But when the girls arrive at their holiday cottage in the village of Ren Dullem things go downhill as the story changes from something resembling chick lit to an uncomfortable exploration into the realms of fantasy fiction, mythical creatures included. Now it's not that I'm opposed to reading anything that ventures off the total-realism path; I am passionate about Isabele Allende's works for example, but in this case I felt I was being clobbered over the head by the idea. To symbolise that there is something unusual going on, we are told there are some "funny" clouds that sit permanently above the village. Fine, but this description was repeated so many times, that I wanted to yell "OK I get it! Enough about the clouds!". As the reader we do eventually uncover what the big secret is but ultimately I just couldn't reconcile myself with this magical aspect of the book and was left disappointed.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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