Tuesday, 21 April 2020

Book Review - Summer at the Highland Coral Beach by Kiley Dunbar

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Title: Summer at the Highland Coral Beach
Author: Kiley Dunbar
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Publisher supplied copy
Publisher: Hera Books
Publication Date: 27th March 2020
Rating: 5 Stars

Escape to the Highland Coral Beach – where broken hearts can be healed

Beatrice Halliday needs a break from life. Booking a trip to the Highlands on a whim, Beatrice hopes learning Gaelic in a beautiful Scottish village might help her heal her grief after losing her baby, her husband and her much loved job in a space of months.

But Port Willow Bay isn’t exactly as the website promised. Instead of learning a new language, she’s booked in to learn the ancient skill of willow weaving, her hotel room is Princess and the Pea themed (with a stack of mattresses for her bed!) and worse still, her tutor is Atholl Fergusson, grumpy landlord of the hotel where Beatrice is staying – and she’s the only one doing the course.

But as Beatrice finds herself falling in love with Port Willow Bay and its people, and as she discovers the kind heart beneath Atholl’s stony exterior, can she really leave?

Escape to the beautiful Scottish Highlands with this utterly romantic, feelgood book; one visit to Port Willow Bay and you’ll want to come back! Fans of Sarah Morgan, Carole Matthews and Holly Martin will be captivated.

I really enjoyed my trip to Port Willow in this really lovely story.  It is such a lovely sounding place up in the Scottish Highlands, even has its own Coral Beach, a Princess and the Pea inn,  a pair of gruff Scottish brothers who have incredibly thick accents,  and then there is Beatrice. 

Beatrice is our heroine of this novel, and her opening is memorable, if heartbreaking.  And then her first days in Scotland which were booked on a whim don't exactly go according to plan. It is clear she is still hurting from recent events, and she appears to be taking it out on the already grumpy Atholl.   

Atholl is actually wonderful as you get to know him, he is rather straight talking but I couldn't help but warm to him. He wants to help his brother but at the same time he is hoping to make a success of his Willow Weaving workshops. 

Haven't heard of Willow Weaving? Neither had I until this book, its an old traditional craft, and I learned a fair bit about Willow too from Atholl.  Always good to learn something new while reading fiction, and this was interesting - but if you aren't sure about it, honestly the specifics are are very short section of a much bigger story. 

Due to the way Atholl and Eugene (his brother) speak, I really could hear the Scottish accent in the back of my mind with every sentence uttered, even if I wasn't sure exactly what some of the local terms meant, there is enough context to get to grips with what feels like a distance cousin to English - can you tell I've not ventured further into Scotland than Glasgow and Edinburgh!! 

Easily one of my favourite characters was Echo, he's adorable, and such a loyal companion, always sensing when someone needs his help the most.  And I really do think he helped Beatrice quite a lot while she was in Port Willow. 

There is a lot jam packed into this book, and I loved every second of this story.  I loved seeing how Beatrice, Atholl and Eugene were all able to change over a very short period of time.   Another incredibly enjoyable story from an author that I'm loving more and more each book. 

Thank you to Hera Books for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily. 

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